They used to buy each other to do things, by promising to tell stories. If Jim wanted Azalea to help him gather firewood, he offered to tell her a story in payment for her help. If Azalea wanted Jim to help her scrub the floor, she promised him a story of things that had happened to her when she was “on the road.” One day Jim told Azalea the story his father had told him that day on the mountain, about the old Atherton mansion, and how it had stood vacant for years and years, with the swallows flying in and out its chimneys, and the snakes and squirrels and birds having their way with it. “There’s snakes in the grass and bats in the porches and wild doves in the barn,” said Jim. “A boy I know told me about it. He says you can’t count the squirrels and the catbirds and the robins and the thrushes. Some think it’s haunted, but I don’t reckon there’s much in that story. I’m not long on ghosts.” “It might have a ghost,” said Azalea wistfully. “Anyway, I’d like to see it—the house, I mean. Oh, Jimmy, I’d just love to see it! Let’s ask ma if we-all can’t go picnicking down there.” Ma was doubtful. She said she’d fooled away altogether too much time lately—that she’d never been so lazy. But at this her whole family laughed so, for they almost never caught her for a moment idle, that she gave in and agreed to go the next Saturday. “Pa’ll be driving to town, and we-all will go along. We can get out at the Old Green Place and cut off across to the Atherton Place and eat our lunch there, and then pa, he can meet us at the Green Place again on the way home. “The road to town used to run by the Atherton house,” pa said. “But it did seem as if it picked up every hill in the whole county, and now that the road ain’t been taken care of for a dozen years, it’s just a pesky lot of sink holes. Why, it’s as much as a horse’s life is worth to take it over that there road.” Saturday morning came with the bluest of skies. Little soft white clouds floated over it like happy ships on a sea; and the wind was playful, too, and the sunshine friendly. The four got off very early and rattled down the mountain side in a manner to take the breath away from anyone who had not perfect confidence in Pa McBirney’s driving. At last the “Old Green Place” was reached, and ma prepared to get out with the children. But pa objected. “See here, I don’t think this is a fair deal, ma,” he said. “Me going off all by myself, eating my lunch alone in this tarnation old wagon, and you three picnicking! You come along with me, ma. I’m not fit to do trading by myself. You know you’ve often said that.” Ma made a face at him, for she knew he had her there, but she really did think it rather dull for pa to drive on alone seven miles to town, and so, after she had made the children promise that they would be careful about this, that and the other thing, and be at the Green Place in the middle of the afternoon, she went on to Lee with pa.