The Pigeon Tale | Page 2

him to be here at last that he could not help exclaiming at everything.
There was the parlor just as he had imagined it, with the row of seashells across the mantle and the door opening into the porch and garden and beyond the library with its great deep fireplace, its old-fashioned andirons and red brick hearth.
Nothing was new in the old house, everything had been made years and years ago when there was no machinery, and chairs and furniture had to be turned by hand; for that reason people who made them took more pains than they do now, so that they would last a long time, and only the colours in the brocades had faded and the silk worn away in the cross-stitch work of the antimacassars.
Laurie went from room to room with Aunt Laura, looking at everything. "Will you show me the cow-pitcher, Aunt Laura?" he asked, and Aunt Laura laughed and opened a deep cupboard, where the best china was kept, and took the pitcher down from a high shelf. Such a curious pitcher, it was, a brown and white china cow--I'm sure it must have been very, very old, for I never see pitchers like it now-a-days. The tail was curved into a handle, and the mouth was the spout!
Aunt Laura said that she would keep it on the table every day, full of cream for his porridge, just as she had done for his mother, when she, as a little girl, had stayed at the farm.
[Illustration: Aunt Laura shows Laurie the cow-pitcher]
When supper came, how good everything tasted! The home-cured ham, delicious butter made on the farm, great slices of fresh bread and schmeirkase--I don't believe many of you boys and girls know what "Schmeirkase" is, do you? Well, anyway, it is made somehow from thick sour cream, so thick that it is put in a bag and hung up in the dairy until it is time to be eaten--when I was a little girl and visited a farm they used to have schmeirkase for supper, and I always hoped they would offer me a second helping and they always did! There were strawberries too, and stewed rhubarb, and chocolate layer cake. And Aunt Laura put the cake away after supper in a round tin box, in a corner of the cupboard, and gave Laurie a great slice the next morning to eat, for fear he would grow hungry before dinner.
"I'm as glad as I can be that I've come," he said, and Uncle Sam and Aunt Laura smiled at each other. "So like his mother," said Aunt Laura and Laurie wondered how he could be like his mother, for his mother was ever so much taller then he, and ever so much more "grown up."
[Illustration: Flower ornament]
CHAPTER II.
After supper, Laurie slipped his small hand inside Uncle Sam's big one, and they started out together to see the farm, the big collie dog "Shep" running along beside them.
"I've never seen so many animals in all my life," he exclaimed, as they came up to the great gate that shut in the barnyard, "except perhaps in the Zoo."
"Shall we stop here for a moment?" said Uncle Sam, lifting Laurie up and seating him on the gate-post, where he could see all over the yard at once.
"Oh, how fine!" exclaimed Laurie, "I feel just like a little bird that perches on a tree, and looks down on the cows underneath, and isn't a bit afraid of their horns!"
[Illustration: Uncle Sam and Laurie]
Uncle Sam laughed, for he knew the cows would not hurt him, nevertheless he kept his arm around Laurie to be sure, for he was a little city boy, and city boys only see pictures of cows in books, and Uncle Sam thought Laurie might be a weeny bit afraid. Bossie, Bonnie Bee, Lilian and Daisy, the cows, were standing around waiting to be milked, switching their tails and moo-oo-ing now and then; some would wander over to the wide horse trough, over which the water spilled, and bend their heads until their mouths touched the water, when they would drink in great gulps, then turn away with dripping chins.
Just then there was the sound of hoofs, and old "Sue," "Magic" and "Marvel" and the colt "Arbutus" raced up from the pasture, and into the barnyard.
Uncle Sam drew a handful of apples out of his capacious pockets, and the horses came whinneying and ate them out of his hand.
"I'm glad I'm up here," laughed Laurie, but Uncle Sam latched the gate, and lifted him down, for there was ever so much more to be seen.
Over in the pig-sty the old mother sow and her family of pigs were pushing each other out of the way to see who could get the most supper, some of them