"Just wait and look at these chickens; ain't they pretty? Tom sent all the way to Indiany fer the settin' of eggs fer me and I've just been a-watching the day for 'em to hatch. I feel they are a-going to be a credit to me and I'm glad I gave 'em to Ruffle Neck to set on. She's such a good hoverer and can be depended on to run from the rain. Now ain't they pretty?" and Mother even looked at Mrs. Peavey with hope for a word of sympathy in her pleasure--after a thirty years' experience with her neighbor. "No," answered her friend, "I don't hold with no fancy chickens. Just good dominicks is all I've got any faith in and not much in them. With strange chickens and girls around your house something misfortunate is a-going to happen to you, Mis' Mayberry, and I see it a-coming. Don't say I didn't tell you." "No, I'll give you credit for your warning," answered Mother propitiatingly. "How's that pain in your side?" she hastened to ask, to change the subject from a disagreeable one to what she knew by experience would prove at least interesting. "It's a heap better," answered Mrs. Peavey promptly. "Oh, I'm so glad," exclaimed Mother, immediately beginning to beam with pride. "I told you Tom could help it with that new kind of dry plaster he made for you. Ain't it wonderful?" "Shoo! I never put that on! It didn't have smell enough to do any good. I knew that as soon as I unrolled it. I just rubbed myself heavy with that mixture of kerosine, vinegar and gum camfire you've been making me for twenty years, and I slept uncommon well." "Oh," answered Mother Mayberry, "I wish you had tried Tom's plaster. I feel sure--" "Well, I don't--of anything that a boy like Tom Mayberry knows. If he lives here a spell and learns from you maybe he'll get some doctoring sense, but I wouldn't trust him for ten years at the shortest. But have you heard the news?" A flame of positive joy flared up in Mrs. Peavey's eyes and flushed her sallow cheeks. "Why, what is it?" asked Mother with a guarded interest and no small amount of anxiety, for she was accustomed to the kind of news that Mrs. Peavey usually took the trouble to spread. "Well, I knowed what was a-going to happen when I seen Bettie Pratt setting the chairs straight and marshaling in the orphants at poor Mis' Hoover's funeral, not but eleven months ago. It'll be a scandal to this town and had oughter be took notice of by Deacon Bostick and the Elder. She's got four Turner children and six Pratts and he have got seven of his own, so Turner, Pratt and Hoover they'll be seventeen children in the house, all about the same size. Then maybe more--I call it a disgrace, I do!"