He touches another knob; down comes the iron dasher--this, too, shining in white enamel--and round and round it goes, tossing, dropping, gathering, tossing again, steadily, patiently; that is the way they mix bread at Baxter's bakery. Pippin watches it, fascinated; he never tires of the wonder of it. But presently Mrs. Baxter calls. "Supper, Pippin, come now! Buster'll mind Elbert for you." Elbert is the dasher, named for the brother baker who persuaded Father Baxter to give up hand mixing and take to machinery. Pippin gives the machine a friendly pat. "Good old Elbert!" he says. "Keep it up, old figger-head! I'll be back, time you're ready to lay off. She's all right, Buster," as the boy enters, munching his final doughnut. "In great shape, Elbert is! You want to scrape her down a mite--" give it twenty masculine names, and a machine must still be feminine--"when she gets balled up, that's all. She's just as sensible--why, she can all but talk, this machine can." "Mourns good and plenty," chuckles Buster, "when she's dry." "Lots of folks mourn when they're dry! I shall be mournin' myself if I wait any longer for that cup o' coffee your ma's got for me. So long, old sport!" "You said you'd tell me that story about Mike Cooney and the turkey!" "Sure thing! But I didn't say I'd tell you when your ma was keepin' supper for me. Quit now!" Seeing he was so late, Mrs. Baxter thought he might as well set right down here at the kitchen table; here was his ham and eggs and coffee, and the pie and doughnuts handy by. She'd been flustrated up all day. Had Pippin heard that there was thieves about? No, Pippin hadn't; he wanted to know if there was! Well, 'twas so. Mis' Wilkins had two pies stole last night right off the butt'ry shelf, and a jug of cider, and matches all over the floor; and night before that they broke into Al Tibbetts's store, broke open the till and made away with two dollars and seventy-five cents. There! She was so nervous she thought she should fly. Did Pippin think the lock was real safe on the bakery door? Pippin, after reassuring her on this point, grew thoughtful over his supper, so thoughtful that he was reproached for not eating a thing. He roused himself. "Not eatin'! Just you watch me, Mis' Baxter! Know what ailed the man that wouldn't eat a supper like this? Well, he was dead, that was what troubled him!"