A weatherworn, disreputable hammock swung lazily between two big fruit laden apple trees beside Aunt Kate's home. Time was when it had been a gaudy, betasseled thing taken into the house each night. But familiarity breeds contempt for choice possessions as well as friends. Now the hammock hung unwatched from June until October. No longer a cherished chattel, it was left to face the ravages of time and weather and man. Yet, in its ripe old age, it had achieved the goal of all good hammocks. It had found its place, not, of course, in the sun--that not being the custom of hammocks--but in Aunt Kate's household. It had become a place of conference, of discussion, aye, even of mutual confession for Helen and her cousin Virginia. It swung lazily in the light breeze of the morning. Not slothfully, but in the relaxation of resting strength prepared instantly to meet its burdens and responsibilities. It was well that this was so. Upon the self-same breeze which swung it, came sounds of laughter and the patter of small feet. With sudden strain and elastic resistance, carried even to the uppermost twigs of the trees, the hammock received the two girls as they precipitated themselves into its lap. "I beat," cried Helen with the pride of victory, changed suddenly into a wail of anguish as a dislodged Bell-flower apple dropped upon her head. "Oh-o-o-o," she groaned; "those apples make me mad. This is the second time that one of them has struck me on the head and I am getting tired of it." In her own end of the hammock Virginia was coiled in a most precarious position. She was so interested in her letter that she failed to give her cousin the full measure of tender sympathy to which that maiden felt herself entitled. Helen rubbed her head with vigor. "Say something 'V.' Is anything the matter with your heart?" she exclaimed, fixing reproachful eyes upon her absorbed companion. "Did it hurt?" Virginia, deep in her letter, politely inquired. Her words, however, lacked that warm condolence for which the head and heart of her cousin yearned. "Did it hurt?" mimicked Helen in disgust. "What a question! It is exactly as bad as if a brick had fallen off the chimney on my head. Yet you sit there and ask if it hurt. What do you think my head is made of?" "Fudge," cried Virginia as the wind twisted her letter so that she could not read it. "Wh-a-at?" Helen was highly indignant until she discovered that her cousin's remark was not a personal allusion. "Never mind," she threatened; "see how I treat you the next time that you get hurt." Virginia finished her letter. She wiggled over towards Helen, an operation which placed both girls in imminent danger of being pitched upon their faces. "I am sorry for your poor head, dear," she giggled, "or should I be sorry for the apple? Let me look."