"But I told you to fix 'em all ready to fry."

"Well, mother," replied Laura, "I'll come as soon as these things are
set to rights. It won't do to leave them just so."

"Well, it's always just so," said the maternal Birch. "I must do it
myself, I see. Don't be all day, Laury,--now don't!"

She disappeared, muttering something about "them plaguy flower-pots."

In point of fact, Chip Dartmouth was all this while in the aforesaid dry
bar-room, engaged in an earnest colloquy with Frank Birch, a grown-up
son of the landlady, a youth just entered on the independent platform of
twenty-one, Laura being three years younger. Chip had arrived rather out
of breath and excited, having got decidedly ahead of the amenities
that would have been particularly expedient under the circumstances.
Approaching a door of the bar-room, which opened near its corner towards
the barn, and which stood open at the time, he descried Frank within
busily engaged mending harness.

"Hallo! young man, I say, hurry up that job, for I've no time to lose."

"Well, I'm glad on't," retorted Frank, hardly looking up from his work,
"for I ha'n't."

"Look here!" said Chip, entering, "you're the man I've been looking for.
I must have a ride to Captain Grant's, straight off, at your own price."

"Maybe you must, but I'm goin' to the Concord cattle-show, and Captain
Grant's is four miles out of the way. I can't think of goin' round, for