"Poor pie!" cried Bubble. "Wal, I like that! Poor _me_, I sh'd say. I'd had bread'n m'lasses three meals runnin', Miss Hildy. Now don't you think that old pie might ha' come down straight?" "You should have seen his face, poor dear!" cried Pink. "He really couldn't laugh--for almost two minutes." "Wal, I s'pose 'twas kind o' funny," the boy admitted, while Hilda laughed merrily over the catastrophe. "But thar! when one's used to standin' on two legs, it's dretful onhandy tryin' to stand on one. We'll have bread and jam to-day," he added, with an affectionate glance at the pot of marmalade, "and that's a good enough dinner for the Governor o' the State." "Indeed, you shall have more than that!" cried Hildegarde. "Nurse Lucy does not need me before dinner, so I will get your dinner for you." So the active girl made up the fire anew, swept the floor, dusted tables and chairs, and made the little room look tidy and cheerful, as Pink loved to see it. Then she ran down to the cellar, and reappeared with a basket of potatoes and a pan of rosy apples. "Now we will perform a trio!" she said. "Pink, you shall peel and core the apples for apple-sauce, and Bubble shall pare the potatoes, while I make biscuit and gingerbread." Accordingly, she rolled up her sleeves and set busily to work; the others followed her example, and fingers and tongues moved ceaselessly, in cheerful emulation of each other. "I'd like to git hold o' Simon Hartley!" said Bubble, slicing vengefully at a big potato. "I wish't he was this tater, so I do! _I'd_ skin him! Yah! ornery critter! An' him standin' thar an' grinnin' at me over the wall, an' I couldn't do nothin'! Seemed's though I sh'd _fly_, Miss Hildy, it did; an' then not to be able to crawl even! I sw--I tell ye, now, I didn't like that." "Poor Bubble!" said Hilda, compassionately, "I'm sure you didn't. And did he really start to crawl over to the farm, Pink?" "Indeed he did!" replied Pink. "Nothing that I could say would keep him from trying it; so I bandaged his ankle as well as I could, and off he started. But he fainted twice before he got to the gate, so there was nothing for it but to crawl back again, and--have the knees of his trousers mended." "Dear boy!" said Hilda, patting the curly head affectionately. "Good, faithful boy! I shall think a great deal more of it, Bubble, than if you had been able to walk all the way. And, after all," she added, "I am glad I had to do it myself,--go down to the mill, I mean. It is something to remember! I would not have missed it." "No more wouldn't I!" cried Bubble, enthusiastically. "I'd ha' done it for ye twenty times, ye know that, Miss Hildy; but I druther ha' hed you do it;" and Hildegarde understood him perfectly. The simple meal prepared and set out, Hilda bade farewell to her two friends, and flitted back to the farm. Mrs. Chirk was to return in the evening, so she felt no further anxiety about them.