was left alone to sit and think for all the next hour how perfectly awful it was to be the baby, until Mother Dear was able to come and dress her.

The next morning it was the same torture all over again. It seemed to Anna-Margaret that people never stopped to think or know what a baby was forced to go through. There were Edith and Ruth racing again. Anna-Margaret spied her shoes and stockings on a chair. Out of the side of her crib she climbed.

"Look at Anna-Margaret!" screamed Edith.

"You, Anna-Margaret, get right back in that crib!" commanded Ruth assuming her mother's tone.

"I won't!" And right over to the chair where her shoes and stockings were, walked the baby. She seated herself on the floor and drew on her stocking as if she had been in the habit of doing it on preceding mornings. It was surprising to Anna-Margaret, herself, the ease with which it went on.

"Look at that child," gasped Ruth.

Edith looked and said a little grudgingly, "I'll bet she can't put on her shoes though." Edith remembered how long it was before she was able to put on her shoes, and this accomplishment, in her mind, seemed to give her a great superiority over her baby sister.

"Come on, Edith," called Ruth, "I'll beat you down to the pump and I'll give you to the rose bush, too."

Struggling, pulling and twisting sat Anna-Margaret all alone, but the shoe would not go on. She was just about to give up in utter despair and burst into tears when Mother Dear appeared in the doorway.

"What is mother's angel doing? Well, well, look at Mother's smart child, she has got on her stocking already,—here, let mother help her."

It was awful to think you were still such a baby that you couldn't do anything yourself, but it was very nice, so Anna-Margaret thought, to have such an adorable mother to come to your rescue.

"There now, run out and tell Ruth to wash your face and then mother will give you your breakfast."

"Wash my face, Ruth," requested Anna-Margaret at the pump.

"Who laced up your shoes?" asked Edith suspiciously.

"I did." Anna-Margaret said it so easily that it startled herself.

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it. I am going to ask Mother."

"Hold still, will you, and let me wash your face," commanded Ruth.

As soon as she was free, away went Anna-Margaret back to the house.

"Muvver, Muvver," cried Anna-Margaret almost breathless as she entered the big kitchen, "tell Edith I laced up my shoes, tell 'er, Muvver, will yo', Muvver?"

Mother stopped her work at the breakfast table. "Anna-Margaret, I could not do that because you didn't."

"But tell 'er I did, won't you, Muvver," she pleaded.

"Anna-Margaret, I can't do that because I would be telling a lie. Don't I whip Ruth and Edith for telling lies?"

"Tell a lie, Muvver, tell a lie, I won't whip you."

Mother Dear was forced to smile. "Here, eat your breakfast, I can't promise my baby I will tell a lie, even if she won't whip me."

Fortunately no one questioned Mother Dear and Anna-Margaret ate her breakfast in silence. Then kissing her mother in a matter of fact way, she went out to play with her sisters.

"Ah, here comes Anna-Margaret to knock down our things," moaned Edith.

"Let her come on," cried Ruth, "and we'll go down in the bottom and build sand forts; it rained yesterday and the sand is nice and damp."

"Oh-oo, let's," echoed Edith, and off they scampered. Anna-Margaret saw them and started after them as fast as her little chubby brown legs could carry her, which wasn't very fast. The other children were far in front of her. Anna-Margaret stopped suddenly,—she heard a little biddie in distress. There was a mother hen darting through the grass after a fleeing grasshopper, and close behind her was the whole flock save one. Anna-Margaret watched them as the young chickens spread open their wings and hurried in pursuit of their mother. Far behind one little black, fuzzy biddie struggled and tripped over the tall grass stems. The baby looked at the little chick and then at the other ones and saw that they were different. She didn't know what the difference was. She could not understand that the other chickens were several days older and that this one had only been taken away from its own mother hen that morning in order that she would remain on her nest until all her chicks were hatched. All Anna-Margaret knew was that they were different.

"Poor l'll biddie, dey don't want you to play wif them," she sympathized, "come, come to Anna-Margaret."

With little difficulty she captured the young chick and started back to the house.

"Dat's all 'ight, I know what I'm gonna do," she decided, "I'm gonna play Dod. Poor l'll biddie, just wait, Anna-Margaret'll fix yo', so you can run and fly and keep up with the biddies. Won't dat be nice, uh?" And she put her curly head down close to the little chick as if to catch its answer.

Anna-Margaret went straight to the big sewing-basket and placing the biddie on the machine extracted a threaded needle. Cutting two small pieces of black cloth for wings, she took the chick and seated herself on the drop-step between the sewing-room and dining-room. She then attempted to sew one of the little black pieces of cloth to one of the tiny wings of the young chick.