tug-o'-war! I have to watch them close to keep the flies out."

The forerunners of autumn had already touched the hillsides, and my
thoughts were turning homeward, when one Saturday morning Mr. Wetherell
came in and said: "Miss Douglass, don't you want to ride up to the
paster? I'm going up to salt the steers."

Mrs. Wetherell hastened to add: "Yes, you go; you hain't had a ride
since you been here. Old Darby ain't fast, but he's good."

Eagerly I accepted the invitation, and in a few minutes we set off.

Darby was a great strong white horse, with minute brown spots all over
him. Mr. Wetherell told me stories of all the people, as Darby shuffled
by their houses, raising a big cloud of dust.

When we came to a sandy stretch of road, Mr. Wetherell said: "This is
what we call the Plains. Here is where we used to have May trainings,
years and years ago. Once they had a sham-fight, and I thought I should
have died a-laughing. I was nothing but a boy. We always thought so much
of the gingerbread we got at training; I used to save my money to spend
on that day. Once, when I was about thirteen year old, a _passel_
of us boys got together to talk over training. Jim Barrows said that old
Miss Hammet (she lived over behind the hill there) had got a cake baked,
with plums in it, for training, and was going to have five cents a slice
for it. He said: 'Now, if the rest of you will go into the house and
talk with her, I will climb into the foreroom window, and hook the cake
out of the three-cornered cupboard.' We all agreed. I went in, and
commenced to talk with the old woman; some of the boys leaned up against
the door that opened into the foreroom. After a little while we went out