But I must tell you, before Dug finds it out, -for I fear he will be greatly pleased or very much disappointed,- that his grandfather was not in the buggy. There was no one at all in it. Old Fly was coming along with an empty buggy. Now that was just what you might expect of Fly, for she was a horse that knew her own mind. Dug's grandfather had gone visiting with her that afternoon, and they had called on several of those aunts and uncles. And finally Dug's grandfather got to talking to his other grandfather about old times, and Fly waited and waited for him. And when she decided he ought to be through talking about old times she walked away. He was n't anywhere near being through, but Fly left anyway and went on about her business. So now

she was coming across the bridge and taking her own time about it-thump, thump-thump, thump!

When she came out into the big room and Dug saw that there was no one in the buggy, he stepped in front of her and said, "Wo! Fly." And Fly "wo'd." Then Dug climbed into the buggy and said, "Git ap! Fly." And Fly "got ap."

Dug pulled on the lines and tried to make her go into a left-hand hallway. She did not want to do it; and when he pulled harder on the line she stopped and turned her head clear around and looked at him awhile. Then she as much as thought, "It 's only that boy." So she kept going her own way and went into a right-hand passage. And after that she paid no attention to him at all, for she was a sensible mare that had a mind of her own. And she knew more about right than Dug did, for she was several years older than he.

When they had gone through the long hallway and come out into the sunshine on the road, Dug sat back under the shady cover of the buggy and thought what a fine trip he would have. This was an easier way of going to New York than he had expected; there was nothing to do but sit, with the big leather seat all to himself, and let Fly take him there. Now it might rain all it wanted; it could not wet him. The canopy of the buggy was quite like a little house of his own, with curtains that would let down at the side and a little window in the

back. They went along that road and over another bridge. They made a few turns and then went up a wider road, where there were houses with green front yards and big honeylocust-trees on both sides. The locust-trees held their branches out over the road and smelled sweet on the evening air. Dug now began to think about supper, for he was getting very hungry. He got down on his knees and looked behind the leather curtain under the seat. Sure enough, his grandfather had apples there. There was a greening and a rambo and a russet. Dug liked the greening because it was big, and the rambo because it was red, and the russet because it was an apple; so he decided he had better take all three of them.

While he was eating the apples the sun began to set, and there were red clouds all piled up on top of the far-away hills. At the end of the high rock the road turned and ran up past the hill, across a railroad track. Just as Fly was turning a locomotive came along, ringing and whistling and making a great noise and smoke.

"Git ap! Fly," said Dug, reaching for the lines and slapping them down on her back. He wanted her to hurry up and cross ahead of the locomotive. But Fly knew better than to do that, so she stopped and paid no attention to what Dug said or did. And when the locomotive was past she started up again and went on across the tracks. There was a white sign on a post that read, "Look out for the cars," but Dug could not find a Y in that, either. The first word had two round letters that looked out at him like a pair of eyes, but that was all he knew about it. Fly plodded along steadily, bobbing her head up and down. It was an up-hill road and very rough. The buggy itself just rocked and rocked as it dipped into the hollows and rolled over the bumps. Dug had laid the apples on the seat after eating all he wanted of them, and now it made him tired to look at them, so he thought he would put them out of sight. He put the three halves of them down under the seat for his grandfather. By the time Fly reached the top of the up-hill road it was dusk, and now the road ran along level. There was a deep hol

low at the right of the road, and it was almost night at the bottom of it. Dug had been growing very drowsy while the frogs were still singing in his ears, the motion of the buggy rocked him to sleep entirely. He lay in the corner of the seat, with his mouth open and his eyes shut, and the crockery O beside him. Old Fly kept going along and bobbing her head the same as ever. She had not been minding him, anyway; so Dug might as well be asleep as awake for all she cared. She passed a brick house with lights in the windows shining out toward the road. There was a barn down in the hollow, and there was a man down there, with a lantern and a pitchfork, saying, "So, boss, so!" Fly cocked her ears as she heard the rustle of the hay, but she kept straight on. After a while she passed another brick house, and then she came to a white framehouse that had a porch all along the side facing a big, sweet-smelling flower-garden. There was a light shining out of an open door and lighting up one of the white pillars of the porch. If Dug had been awake he would have known this place. But he was sleeping soundly and dreaming about New York.

Fly turned off the road here and went down a lane behind the house. And there she put her head over the barn-yard gate and whinnied to let it be known that she had come home and was quite ready for a good supper. The hired man came hurrying down the path from the house and opened the gate. Fly came in with the buggy, and whinnied again in a friendly way to the hired man. When the hired man saw no one but Dug in the rockaway he looked in the barn and up the lane. And finding no one else, he shook Dug to make him wake up.

"Where's your grandfather?" he asked. Dug sat up and blinked his eyes at the lantern before his face. Then he rubbed his nose, lay down on the seat, and went right to sleep again. The hired man shook him again and asked where his grandfather was. Dug only grunted and brushed his hand at the hired man as if he were a bothersome fly.

The hired man ran into the house, and this time he came out with three aunts and two uncles and a grandmother. They all shook

Dug and tried to make him sit up and talk. But he would lie right down as soon as they let go of him. Before they could find out what they wanted to know, the front gate slammed and some one came down the path to the barn-yard. It was Dug's grandfather. He had walked all the way home. And as he told about it and saw that Dug had come there with Fly and the buggy, he was even more surprised than they were. And when they asked how it happened he said he did n't know. this time the hired man had got Dug wakened, and when he heard the voices of his aunts and uncles and grandparents he was reminded to show them what the potter had made.

By

"Look at the ring-jug!" he said, holding it up for them to see.

"Oh, what is it?" they all exclaimed.

Dug leaned over to give it to his grandfather, but he was so sleepy that he let go of it too soon, and it broke into a hundred pieces on the hub of the buggy wheel.

"Oh-o-o-o!" they all exclaimed again. Dug could never explain to them what it was like. But one day, when he started to study his letters again, he pointed to a letter and said, "The ring-jug was like that." And when they told him it was an O he never forgot it. He would say, "Oh!" every time he saw it. And they could never find out exactly how Dug came there that night. For all he would say when they asked him was, "I comed with Fly."

And so they made up their minds that Dug had taken Fly and driven over just to see his grandmother.

"And think how smart he was to know right and left and not get mixed up in the bridge!” Isaid one of his aunts.

"And not get lost at any turns of the road!" said another.

"And not get run over by the cars!" said another.

"What a smart child!" said his grandmother. And everybody in the neighborhood would point him out and tell the other children they ought to be like Dug.

So you see that it was a good thing for Dug that a horse knows how to make up its mind. What would he have done in that bridge if Fly

BY GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE.

THE STAG WHO TRIED TO PLEASE EVERYBODY.

UNCLE BERGEN, the plantation shoemaker at Broadlands, was building himself a pair of most wonderful boots. The Randolph children had drifted down to the shoe-shop with their nurse, America, Uncle Bergen's daughter, in the hope that he would tell them a story. It may be that this was the reason why Pate made fun of the boots.

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"They won't look nice on you, Unc' Bergen," he asserted ungraciously. Anyhow, you 'd have to tuck your pants into them to show the red tops; and if you did that, they 'd look worser than ever."

Patricia was the peacemaker; yet even she regarded Uncle Bergen's silence with great disfavor. "I think shoes are a heap nicer," she suggested plaintively.

"Me likes s'ippers," put in baby Isabel. "Now," demanded the shoemaker, severely, slowly turning toward the children as if to give

dey ain't been no deers. She done well by him, for a widder, an' she tried for to l'arn him sense. But he was a great somebody to go 'bout seekin' advice, an' askin' all de other critters how does dey like his ways.

"Time his horns commence to sprout, he norrated pretty much all th'oo de Big Woods, astin' each critter how do he like de new 'rangement. His mammy sont him to de king's house for to warn de drizzly bear, what was king o' de Big Woods, of a bee-tree dat she done find. "How you admire dese-hyer bumps what done come on de cornders o' my head?' de deer boy ax of the King Bear.

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"De drizzly bear feel 'blige to say somethin' -an' say hit strong. Huh!' he grunt; 'dey looks scan'alous to me-plumb scan'alous. I ain't never been havin' nothin' like that on my head; an' look-I 's de king o' de Big Woods, an' when I holler every critter in de Big Woods 'blige to jump. Ef you keep on wid dem sprouters on yo' head, you gwine come to a a bad eend-you hear me?'

"De deer boy hump hisself home to he mammy, an' say he gwine quit havin' dem bumps on he forehead, an' he gwine quit hit

"By dat, he take to axin' de birds an' de field-mices an' de hoppergrasses and de little fishes how dey like de new horns what he commence to sprout. I done told you dis-hyer deer ain't growed-he dest a boy. When he dance home to he mammy with de ruthers o' all dem little critters 'bout shill he have horns or shill he not have horns, she say, dest de same, Gump!'-dest so she say hit, Gump! You let dem horns alone. Ef dey eaches, you rub 'em 'gainst a saplin'. You gwine be mighty proud when dey grows out.'

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"So de young deer boy-he gittin' to be a right smart fryin'-size critter by dis-hyer timehe lef' dem horns grow, 'ca'se he cain't do no other way. He sot in to eat, an' to bark de trees; but he ain't fergit to ask every critter dat he pass de time o' day wid, does hit like de notion o' him wearin' horns.

"Some do, an' some don't. Dem folks what hain't got no horns deyse'f-w'y, dey nachelly ag'in' him raisin' any. Dem what got horns cain't never agree 'bout how his'n should sprout; an' seem like dey hain't no peace o' mind for de deer boy in dat way o' carryin' on. "A old goat done tell him dat horns was all