"That's just what they'll _try_ to do. They did with our family, and when they got us all spoiled, they said we were the worst children in town--that ministers' children always were. Why, Mrs. Waddler--her name is Wardlaw, but she is so big and fat that I call her Waddler--that's her over there feeding cake to that scrap of a man--he's her husband--well, she told Mrs. Grinnell once that I was possessed of seven devils. I asked mother what that meant, and she was dreadfully mad. It takes a lot to make mother mad, too. When we first moved here to Parker, Mrs. Wardlaw thought I was the cutest little girl she had ever seen--she told me so lots of times--but she doesn't any more. Now she says I am a hoy-ena--no, that isn't the word. It means tomboy, anyway. That is what Mr. Hardman calls me, too. He's the _imbecile_ who lives on the farm next to our place." "The wh--at?" "Well, he is! He says so himself. He doesn't b'long to any church, and hardly ever goes, and he says r'ligion is all tommyrot." "Oh, you mean infidel," suggested the pastor, trying hard not to laugh again. "Maybe. His name is really Hartman. I nicknamed him 'cause he won't let us have the hazelnuts in his pasture, and he stole my pet chicken,--leastwise, he let it stay in his flock so now I can't coax it back; and he chased us out of his apple trees one day when we were just climbing after one pretty red one way up high out of reach. We did knock off quite a few, but we never meant to carry them off with us. He doesn't like girls, and says if he had a family of six like us, he'd--" "Are you six girls all there are?" "Isn't that enough? Seems to me it's a pretty big family. When I was little, Cherry and me used to pray that the angels would never bring any more babies to our family, 'cause the pieces of pie were getting awfully little, and, of course, they got littler every time there was another baby. But they brought us Allee anyway. That was just after mother's onliest uncle died and left her some money, and she made papa take it and buy our farm and bring us out here to live after he had been sick a long, long time with _tryfoid_ fever, and had lost all his pretty hair." "Didn't you say your papa was a minister?" "I said he used to be." "What is he now?" "An angel." "Oh!"