Sammy: "Afternoon, Miss Mavis!" M----: "How is everyone at home, Sammy?" S----: "Pretty fair, thank you." M----: "Anything exciting happen in Green Hill lately, Sammy?" S----: "Nothin' in perticular, Miss Mavis." Here Sarah made a remark. "Why, Sammy, you told me yourself, not ten minutes back, that your folks found old man Thomas hanging to the rafters of his own barn this morning!" Sammy, in deep disgust, "Oh, him!" Sarah, sharply, "Suppose you think a hanging aint nothing worth mentioning, Sammy!" To which the youth, defensively, "Well, it kinder slipped my mind." "Why, Sammy," I here ejaculated, with real horror, "that's dreadful!" Sammy shifted to his other foot for a change. "Yes'm," he remarked. "Paw found him. That's the third man," he continued with satisfaction, "that Paw's cut down. He never did have much luck." Sarah looked triumphant. I, making a miraculous recovery, inquired, "I wonder why he did such a thing--Mr. Thomas, I mean?" "Wife druv him," volunteered Sammy cheerfully. I tried to appear shocked, but Sarah answered with bitterness, "Couldn't stand living with himself any longer, like as not." But Sammy, ignoring her, turned to me and said with conviction, "Wimmen, Miss Mavis, is the dickens!" Here the conversation ended. Sammy departed with a tug of his tow forelock, doubtless a legacy from ancestors who now sleep quietly across the ocean. Sarah bustled him out of the room, as one shoos chickens, and I lay back on my pillows and laughed. There is more to Sammy's melancholy than meets the eye. I seem to see Rosie Allan's fine Yankee hand in this. However, sooner or later I shall solve the mystery, for all Green Hill comes, now and again, to this peaceful room. I've peeped into my new books, and nibbled at something which starts out by acting like a peach and ends up by becoming an apricot. And now I will write to my Fairy Godfather. For I have a Great Idea, Diary, which I will not confide to you until it has taken shape. GREEN HILL July 4 We've been celebrating today! Even unto firecrackers under my window--I am only grateful that they were not under my bed! Doctor Denton, who arrived this morning with Doctor Mac in tow, unbent sufficiently to present me with a small silk flag. I was coldly sweet to him, but warmly so to his companion. It's nice to have Doctor Mac at home--language, beetle-brows, and all! He was led into the room by his younger colleague, and brought to my bedside, with an air of "Eureka! Behold my handiwork!" Doctor Mac is very much pleased with my appearance--from a medical standpoint--and before the two of them departed, it was practically settled that I should begin the massage so that the out-of-doors campaign might be started. I informed Doctor Denton that I had a letter from his uncle, to which he remarked. "Didn't know you corresponded!" Curiously enough, the news appeared to annoy him.