"Have Sally and Peter said anything about getting married yet?" asked my big sister Lucy of mother. Lucy was home on a visit. She was bathing her baby and mother was sewing. "Not a word!" "Are they engaged?" "Sally hasn't mentioned it." "Well, can't you find out?" "How could I?" asked mother. "Why, watch them a little and see how they act when they are together. If he kisses her when he leaves, of course they are engaged." "It would be best to wait until Sally tells me," laughed mother. I heard this from the back steps. Neither mother nor Lucy knew I was there. I went in to see if they would let me take the baby. Of course they wouldn't! Mother took it herself. She was rocking, and softly singing my Dutch song that I loved best; I can't spell it, but it sounds like this: "Trus, trus, trill; Der power rid der fill, Fill sphring aveck, Plodschlicter power in der dreck." Once I asked mother to sing it in English, and she couldn't because it didn't rhyme that way and the words wouldn't fit the notes; it was just, "Trot, trot, trot, a boy rode a colt. The colt sprang aside; down went the boy in the dirt." "Aw, don't sing my song to that little red, pug-nosed bald-head!" I said. Really, it was a very nice baby; I only said that because I wanted to hold it, and mother wouldn't give it up. I tried to coax May to the dam snake hunting, but she couldn't go, so I had to amuse myself. I had a doll, but I never played with it except when I was dressed up on Sunday. Anyway, what's the use of a doll when there's a live baby in the house? I didn't care much for my playhouse since I had seen one so much finer that Laddie had made for the Princess. Of course I knew moss wouldn't take root in our orchard as it did in the woods, neither would willow cuttings or the red flowers. Finally, I decided to go hunting. I went into the garden and gathered every ripe touch-me-not pod I could find, and all the portulaca. Then I stripped the tiger lilies of each little black ball at the bases of the leaves, and took all the four o'clock seed there was. Then I got my biggest alder popgun and started up the road toward Sarah Hood's. I was going along singing a little verse; it wasn't Dutch either; the old baby could have that if it wanted it. Soon as I got from sight of the house I made a powderhorn of a curled leaf, loaded my gun with portulaca powder, rammed in a tiger lily bullet, laid the weapon across my shoulder, and stepped high and lightly as Laddie does when he's in the Big Woods hunting for squirrel. It must have been my own singing--I am rather good at hearing things, but I never noticed a sound that time, until a voice like a rusty saw said: "Good morning, Nimrod!"