The old farmer returned her smile with one so bright and kind and genial that somehow the ice bent, then cracked, and then broke. The old Hilda shrank into so small a space that there was really very little left of her, and the new Hilda rose from table feeling that she had gained a new friend. So it came to pass that about an hour later our heroine was walking beside the farmer on the way to the barnyard, talking merrily, and swinging the basket which she was going to fill with eggs. "But how shall I find them," she asked, "if the hens hide them away so carefully?" "Oh, you'll hear 'em scrattlin' round!" replied the farmer. "They're gret fools, hens are,--greter than folks, as a rule; an' that is sayin' a good deal." They crossed the great sunny barn-yard, and paused at the barn-door, while Hilda looked in with delight. A broad floor, big enough for a ballroom, with towering walls of fragrant hay on either side reaching up to the rafters; great doors open at the farther end, showing a snatch of blue, radiant sky, and a lovely wood-road winding away into deep thickets of birch and linden; dusty, golden, cobwebby sunbeams slanting down through the little windows, and touching the tossed hay-piles into gold; and in the middle, hanging by iron chains from the great central beam, a swing, almost big enough for a giant,--such was the barn at Hartley Farm; as pleasant a place, Hilda thought, as she had ever seen. "Waal, Huldy, I'll leave ye heer," said the farmer; "ye kin find yer way home, I reckon." "Oh, yes, indeed!" said Hilda. "But stop one moment, please, Farmer Hartley. I want to know--will you please--may I teach Bubble Chirk a little?" The farmer gave a low whistle of surprise; but Hilda went on eagerly: "I found him studying, this morning, while he was weeding the garden,--oh! studying so hard, and yet not neglecting his work for a minute. He seems a very bright boy, and it is a pity he should not have a good education. Could you spare him, do you think, for an hour every day?" She stopped, while the farmer looked at her with a merry twinkle in his eye. "You teach Bubble Chirk!" he said. "Why, what would your fine friends say to that, Miss Huldy? Bubble ain't nothin' but a common farm-boy, if he _is_ bright; an' I ain't denyin' that he is." "I don't know what they would say," said Hildegarde, blushing hotly, "and I don't care, either! I know what mamma would do in my place; and so do you, Farmer Hartley!" she added, with a little touch of indignation. "Waal, I reckon I do!" said Farmer Hartley. "And I know who looks like her mother, this minute, though I never thought she would. Yes!" he said, more seriously, "you shall teach Bubble Chirk, my gal; and it's my belief 'twill bring you a blessin' as well as him. Ye are yer mother's darter, after all. Shall I give ye a swing now, before I go; or are ye too big to swing!" "I--don't--know!" said Hildegarde, eying the swing wistfully. "Am I too big, I wonder?"