"I can get in five," added Bess, with an equal eagerness. "Can I have the Addcocks?" Bess and the pessimistic Mrs. Addcock had got together over some medicine to prevent pip in the conservatory young Leghorns. "Yes, and Matthew can take all the eight Spains if I can sit down Mrs. Spain to a bolt of gingham in time to get them all nicely covered for such a company," decreed the general, as she ran over in her mind's eye the rest of the population of Riverfield. "I'll make all the men hitch their best teams to the different rigs, and by starting early and taking both dinner and supper on the way we can get there in plenty of time. Twenty miles is not more than a half day's trip." "I can sit by you and hold two Spains in my lap," I heard Polly plan with Matthew. "Sure you can," he answered her. "I think the loveliest thing about Matthew Berry is the way he speaks to women and children." As he answered, he piled Aunt Mary and Polly in beside the rest of the wheat-bags and motored them away down the avenue. "Ann, please come to town with me," pleaded Bess as she got into her car and prepared to follow in the wake of the wheat-bags. "I miss you so, and Belle weeps at the mention of you. She and I are having dinner at the Old Hickory Club with Houston Jeffries and Owen to-night. Matt will come, and let's have one good old time. I came all this way to get you." "I honestly, honestly can't, Bess," I said as I took her hand stretched down from her seat behind the wheel to me, and put my cheek against it. "I've got this whole farm to feed between now and night. Both incubators must have their supper of oil or _you_ know what'll happen. Mrs. Ewe and family must be fed, or rather she must be fed so as to pass it along at about breakfast time, I should say, not being wise in biology or natural history; the entire Bird family are invited to supper with me, and I even have to carry a repast of corn over the meadows to my pet abhorrences, Rufus' swine, because he has retired to the hay-loft with a flannel rag around his head, which means I have offended him or that father has given him an extra absent-minded drink from the decanter that Matthew brought him. Peckerwood Pup is at this moment, you see, chewing the strings out of my shoes as an appetizer for her supper. How could I eat sweetbreads and truffle, which I know Owen has already ordered, when I knew that more than a hundred small children were at home crying for bread?" "Ann, what is it that makes you so perfectly radiantly beautiful in that faded linen smock and old corduroy skirt? Of course, you always were beautiful, but now you look like--like--well, I don't know whether it is a song I have heard or a picture I have seen." Bess leaned down and laid her cheek against mine for a second.