“No, you won't have time--it's after five already, and I want to make a deep-dish peach pie. I hear Rev. MacGill's especially fond of it. You can take Gypsy home after supper. Now hurry up!--I'm behindhand already.” So Missy led Gypsy into the yard and took the pail her mother brought out to her. “The peaches aren't quite ripe,” said mother, with a little worried pucker, “but they'll have to do. They have some lovely peaches at Picker's, but papa won't hear of my trading at Picker's any more.” Missy thought it silly of her father to have curtailed trading at Picker's--she missed Arthur's daily visit to the kitchen door with the delivery-basket--merely because Mr. Picker had beaten father for election on the Board of Aldermen. Father explained it was a larger issue than party politics; even had Picker been a Republican he'd have fought him, he said, for everyone knew Picker was abetting the Waterworks graft. But Missy didn't see why that should keep him from buying things from Picker's which mother really needed; mother said it was “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Philosophizing on the irrationality of old people, she proceeded to get enough scarcely-ripe peaches for a deep-dish pie. Being horribly afraid of climbing, she used the simple expedient of grasping the lower limbs of the tree and shaking down the fruit. “Missy!” called mother's voice from the dining room window. “That horse is slobbering all over the peaches!” “I can't help it--she follows me every place.” “Then you'll have to tie her up!” “Tess never ties her up in THEIR yard!” “Well, I won't have him slobbering over the fruit,” repeated mother firmly. “I'll--climb the tree,” said Missy desperately. And she did. She was in mortal terror--every second she was sure she was going to fall--but she couldn't bear the vision of Gypsy's reproachful eyes above a strangling halter; Gypsy shouldn't think her hostess, so to speak, less kind than her own mistress. The peach pie came out beautifully and the supper promised to be a great success. Mother had zealously ascertained Rev. MacGill's favourite dishes, and was flushed but triumphant; she came of a devout family that loved to feed preachers well. And everyone was in fine spirits; only Missy, at the first, had a few bad moments. WOULD he mention it? He might think it his duty, think that mother should know. It was maybe his duty to tell. Preachers have a sterner creed of duty than other people, of course. She regarded him anxiously from under the veil of her lashes, wondering what would happen if he did tell. Mother would be horribly ashamed, and she herself would be all the more ashamed because mother was. Aunt Nettie would be satirically disapproving and say cutting things. Father would probably just laugh, but later he'd be serious and severe. And not one of them would ever, ever understand.