ANN'S OWN WAY
"Ann! Ann! Have you been home yet to feed the chickens?" The call came from the doorway of a big old farmhouse, where a pleasant-faced woman stood looking out over the October fields.
The answer floated down from an apple-tree near by, where a ten-year-old girl sat perched among its gnarled branches. She had a dog-eared book of fairy tales on her knee, and was poring over it in such blissful absorption that she had forgotten there were such things in all the world as chickens to be fed.
"No'm, Aunt Sally, I haven't done it yet, but I'll go in a minute," and she was deep into the story again.
"But, Ann," came the voice after a moment's waiting, "it is nearly sundown, and you ought to go right away, dear. Lottie says that you have been reading ever since you came home from school, and I am afraid that your mother wouldn't like it."
"SAT PERCHED AMONG ITS GUARDED BRANCHES."
"Oh, bother!" exclaimed Ann under her breath, shutting the book with an impatient slap; but she obediently swung herself down from the limb, and went into the house for the key. The little cottage where Ann Fowler lived stood just across the lane from her Uncle John's big brown house, where she was staying while her mother was away from home. Mrs. Fowler, who had been called to the city by her sister's illness, had taken little Betty with her, but Ann could not afford to miss school and had been left in her Aunt Sally's care. The arrangement was very agreeable to the child, for it meant no dish-wiping, no dusting, no running of errands while she was a guest. Her only task was to go across the lane twice a day and feed the chickens.