THE OLD TUMBLER, AFTER ALL.
Hal's chickens prospered remarkably. Five motherly hens clucked to families of black-eyed chicks; and, out of fifty-eight eggs, he only lost seven. So there were fifty-one left. They made some incursions in his garden, to be sure; but presently every thing grew so large that it was out of danger.
There was plenty of work to do on Saturdays. Picking cherries and currants for the neighbors, and the unfailing gardening. It seemed to Hal that weeds had a hundred lives at least, even if you did pull them up by the roots. Sometimes he managed to get a little work out of Kit and Charlie, but they invariably ended by a rough-and-tumble frolic.
Florence succeeded admirably with her embroidering. She managed to earn some pretty dresses for herself, and added enough to Hal's store to enable him to purchase a suit of clothes, though they were not as grand as Joe's.
Hal and Granny took a wonderful sight of comfort sitting on the doorstep through the summer evenings, and talking over old times. Granny would tell how they did when his father, her own dear Joe, was alive, and how pretty his mother had been.
"Flo's a good deal like her," she would always say; "only Flo's wonderful with her fingers. She can do any thing with a needle."
"Flo's a born genius," Hal would reply admiringly.
"But I'm afraid Charlie'll never learn to sew."
"I can sew better myself," was Hal's usual comment.
And it was true. Hal had a bedquilt nearly pieced, which he had done on rainy days and by odd spells. I expect you think he was something of a girl-boy. But then he was very sweet and nice.