His mother looked down at the boy with a smile. How well she remembered the delights of threshing-day herself. She looked about the kitchen to see what had yet to be done. "Wait a little, Jack. I've got to help get the table set and the dinner on to cook. You wouldn't have me leave grandma to do all the work alone, would you?" she asked suggestively. As Jack hesitated between his great desire to see the marvel of the stackyard and his desire to show as much manliness as his mother evidently expected of him, there was a noise on the doorstep and Hepsie came smilingly in. "I followed you all on th' pony," she said. "I fixed it up with th' boys yesterday t' take a cold dinner to-day an' let me come an' help here. We're lookin' out that you don't hurt yourself to-day, Mis Farnshaw," she added, addressing the older woman. "Now you can go to the threshing machine too, grandma!" Jack cried with delight. "Come on, let's go right now!" "Not now, Jack," Elizabeth said. "Hepsie didn't come to get the dinner alone." "Oh, yes, she did! She likes to," Jack replied so confidently that they all laughed, and Hepsie fell on the child and hugged him. "Of course I did, Jack. Grandma will show me what to do, and then she and mamma can take you out to see the machine go round and round like a big coffee mill, and maybe Jack can ride one of the horses." "Oh, Hepsie! Don't put that into the child's head," Elizabeth interposed hastily. "I wouldn't have him on one of those horses for anything." "Mamma says I spoil you, Jack. Run along now, and let me look after this dinner." As soon as the tables were set and the dinner on to cook, Elizabeth and her mother took the excited child and started to the barnyard. Mrs. Farnshaw was pulled along by the impatient grandson, and Elizabeth came at some distance behind, having stopped to glance in the chicken house as she went. The marvellous ant-hill called a stackyard would not permit Jack to wait for his mother. Mr. Farnshaw saw them coming. He would gladly have avoided his wife and daughter, but Jack took things for granted and always insisted upon dragging his mother into his grandfather's presence and mixing them up in the conversation. Elizabeth had dropped behind purposely, knowing her father's feelings toward her, and did not hear Jack say persuasively: "Grandpa, let Jack drive and make the horses go round." "No, no, Jack," Mrs. Farnshaw said quickly. "Mamma said you could not go on the horsepower." Mr. Farnshaw gave his wife a look of disdain and, stooping, picked the child up. Mrs. Farnshaw gave a little cry. When his own team came around, Mr. Farnshaw walked in front of it and started toward the platform on which Albert stood swinging a long whip. The "near horse" of the Farnshaw team was a stolid and reliable mare, mother of many colts. She was so placed because it had been decided to put a young stallion of uncertain temper beside her.