But if Azalea thought that everything was to be done for her, and that she was to do nothing in return, she soon found out that she was wrong. Probably no such idea occurred to her, for she was born with a loving heart, and she had learned to serve. She was not surprised, therefore, when she found that all of the family got up early and worked hard. There were the animals to feed, the house to tidy, the water to bring, the plants to water, the garden to weed. Nobody hurried, exactly, but ma was not fond of “lazy bones,” and she kept everyone going till all was as it should be. She advised pa to drive the calf down to the butcher, and she had a basket of eggs to get ready. But at last all was done, and pa, with Jim beside him, sat on the front seat of the wagon, and ma and Azalea sat in the back seat, all clean and fine, ready to drive down the mountain. The little calf was tied on behind. The hounds had been shut up, and only the cat saw them off. The chickens and guinea hens and turkeys could be heard away up in the brush, but they concerned themselves very little with the comings and goings of anyone. The martins were flying in and out of the high-swung gourds, but they seemed to care as little as the ground fowl. Neither did the little old house, basking there in the sun, seem to mind. And the graves there, under the Pride of India trees—they minded not at all. So by steep and pleasant ways, underneath the chestnuts and the hemlocks, the oaks and the mulberries, the tulip trees and the poplars, the McBirneys, four in number, went winding on down, down the road toward Lee. They had not been an hour on their way before something curious happened. There was a rushing in the bushes beside the road which startled the horses and made Thomas McBirney take the whip out of its socket to be ready for anything that might arise. And the queer part of it was that the creature that was making the noise, was running along, trying to keep pace with the wagon. “If it was one of the hounds broken loose, it would set up a cry,” said pa. “And it ain’t leaping and jumping like an animal, nohow.” Azalea’s heart beat hard. She thought that perhaps it was, after all, a wild animal, and that maybe they would be attacked. She was used to being on the road, but this part of the Blue Ridge was wilder than that through which she usually had traveled. However, there was not much time in which to be frightened, for before any one could realize what was happening, Jim had leaped over the wagon wheel and plunged into the bushes. “Hold on there, boy,” yelled his father. “You don’t know what you’ll be running into.” A shout of laughter reached him. “Well, I’ll be lammed!” cried Jim. “I’ll be shingled, if it ain’t Hi!” “High!” cried pa. “How high? What high? What you talking about, son?” “Oh, it’s Hi! it’s Hi!” Azalea chorused, and in a flash she too was over the wagon wheel and in the brush.