Strange was the sight her eyes beheld as she came around the corner into the front yard. Hens fled before her approach but such funny looking hens; they all had more or less tags flying from their bills. They had swallowed the corn but the strings and tags were beyond their ability to masticate and they blew out defiantly in the breeze. One tag had become loosened and Mrs. Brown picked it up and read the scribbled words. While she was thinking just what she ought to do to Willie, Mrs. Baker came across the yard, bristling like a frightened porcupine. "What have you been doing to my hens?" she demanded. Mrs. Brown, like the efficient woman she was, saw her opportunity and rose to the occasion. "Your hens, Mrs. Baker, why nothing. I have been in the kitchen all the morning until I just came out to call Willie to dinner. Willie has been keeping the hens out of my garden, not your hens, you know you have assured me your hens never come over here." Thinking discretion the better part of valor Mrs. Baker suddenly remembered something that needed immediate attention and she hastened to attend to it. Mrs. Brown watched her out of sight, smiling in appreciation of the genius she had raised, then she turned and confronted Mrs. Jones, coldly angry. "What do you mean, Mrs. Brown, by tagging my hens until they look like a mark down sale?" "What are you talking about, Mrs. Jones? Your hens couldn't have been over here could they? I am sure neither Willie nor I have been out of the yard." "I smell something burning." In spite of the fact that the Jones homestead was quite a distance and the wind in the direction to blow all odors in the opposite direction Mrs. Brown did not try to detain her. Neither did she punish Willie, in fact she gave him an extra piece of pie for dinner. * * * * * The Browns, Joneses and Bakers are still on the best of terms, but Mr. Brown never put the wire netting up and yet Mrs. Brown plants her garden with never a thought of neighbors' hens. Incidentally Willie and Ned have developed into first class fishermen. BY HEART LILLIAN E. ANDREWS Captain Enoch Burgess went down Mapleville's main street at a rate of speed that threatened to break all records. The tails of his linen coat stood out like the sails of a Gloucester fisherman homeward bound with a "full bin fare." He stamped up Abner Crowell's walk, and slammed the kitchen door. Abner was weeding onions. He stared after the captain curiously. "Looks like squally weather," he commented. "I wonder what's sent Enoch on his beam ends like that." As Abner bent with a grunt to his task, his wife came hurrying toward him, her apron strings flying like distress signals. "Abner," she demanded excitedly, "did you ever hear of Captain Enoch's havin' fits?" "No, I dunno's I ever did," replied Abner, twitching up an enterprising wild mustard.