"You'll get your neck broken," predicted Polly. "Do you remember
the day we tried to ride Job, and he lay down and rolled us off?"

"That was your fault," returned Alan; "if you hadn't gripped his
mane so, he'd have been all right. Well," he added, sitting up and
stretching himself, "mother sent me to the market, and I s'pose I
must go, but I thought I'd just stop in a minute."

"Oh, dear! how I wish I had a brother!" sighed Polly, watching his
boyish figure, as he sauntered away across the grass.

"Yes," said Jean slowly, as she thought of the four little
brothers at home, "it is nice, but it has its drawbacks, Polly.
When they all want to do the same thing at the same time, and
can't wait a minute, why, then it doesn't seem quite so
agreeable."

In the warm twilight, Mrs. Adams and Polly sat on the broad
piazza. Miss Bean had taken her departure, long before, and Jean
had gone home to help her mother get supper and put the younger
children to bed. The birds were twittering their last sleepy good
nights, and two or three little stars were faintly showing in the
blue sky above the dark mountain, while scores of tiny fireflies
were dotting the air below.

"There, Jerusalem!" Polly was saying triumphantly, as she perched
herself on the broad arm of her mother's piazza chair; "now
everybody is out of the way, and I can have you all to myself."