"I've a piece of news for you," said Susan, "and you are not going to have one bite of breakfast until I've told you. There is a little boy coming to live next door, and his name is Philip Vane. We are going to play together and be friends. Aren't you glad?"

Old Frizzly, so named because her feathers grew the wrong way, could no longer restrain her impatience at this delay of her meal. She uttered an extra loud squawk and flapped her wings wrathfully. But Susan accepted it as an answer to her question.

"Old Frizzly is the only one of you with any manners at all," said she reprovingly. "You are greedy, and you are rude, and you don't care a bit whether I have any one to play with or not."

And, hastily emptying her bowl, Susan departed to station herself upon the low stone wall that separated the Tallman house from her own. She saw heads pa.s.s and repa.s.s the open windows, sounds of hammering floated out upon the sweet spring air, rugs were vigorously shaken on the little back porch. The butcher's cart rumbled noisily past on the main road, and a slim lady, with fair hair and a long blue ap.r.o.n, stepped out on the porch and, shading her eyes with her hand, gazed down the driveway as if she were expecting some one.

But, in spite of these interesting sights and sounds, Susan felt disappointed, for not a single peep did she have of the new little boy.

"Did Miss Liza say there was a little boy, Grandmother?" asked Susan, coming into the house at dinner-time so low in her mind that she dragged patient Flippy along by one arm, her limp feet trailing on the ground behind her.

"Why, yes," answered Grandmother, gazing into the oven at a pan of nicely browned biscuit. "I told you yesterday what she said, Susan. 'A little boy about the age of your Susan,' said she. Now run to the door for me and see whether Grandfather is coming. I want him to carry over this plate of biscuit to Mrs. Vane to show ourselves neighborly, and you shall go along with him if you like."

Susan needed no second invitation. She skipped ahead of Grandfather as they went through the low place made in the stone wall for Grandmother and Miss Tallman to step through easily. But when they reached the doorway, and Mrs. Vane stood before them, she shyly hid behind Grandfather's great leather boots.

She listened to the grown-up talk with ears wide open for some mention of a person her own age, but it was not until Grandfather turned to go that she felt bold enough to slip her hand in his and give it a little squeeze as if to remind him why she had come.

"Oh, yes," said Grandfather, understanding the squeeze perfectly and so proving himself to Susan the wisest man in the world. "This is my little granddaughter Susan, Mrs. Vane. She was very much interested in a rocking-horse that fell from one of your vans yesterday."

"That was Phil's rocking-horse," said Mrs. Vane, smiling kindly down into Susan's big black eyes, at this moment half friendly and half shy.

"Philip is my little boy, and he will be so glad of a next-door neighbor. He has had no one to play with in the city, and he has been very ill, too, but I know he will enjoy himself here where he can run and shout as much as he likes, and I'm sure he will soon be well, now that he can play out in this good sun and air."

Susan looked all about her in search of a little boy running and shouting as much as he liked, but Phil's mother met her glance with a shake of the head.

"No, he isn't here yet," said she. "But I expect him any minute. His father is going to bring him up from the city this morning."

Filled with the hope of seeing Phil arrive, Susan hurried through her dinner, but as she left the house and started toward the garden wall, the sight of Snuff limping dismally along on three legs drove all other thoughts from her mind.

"Grandfather, Grandfather, Snuffy's hurt," she called, and, putting her arms around her s.h.a.ggy playfellow, she tried to help him up the back steps.

Snuff whimpered a little to gain sympathy, but he bore the pain without flinching when Grandfather gently pulled the cruel splinter from his foot, and washed and bound up the wound. Susan, remembering Snuff's sweet tooth, begged a bowl of custard from Grandmother, and she was enjoying Snuff's pleasure in the treat when a voice fell upon her ears.

"I'm here," said the voice. "I've come. I'm Phil."

Susan sprang to her feet and faced the thinnest little boy she had ever seen.

"He's as thin as a bone," thought she, borrowing an expression from Grandmother.

But the thin little face owned a pair of honest blue eyes, and a smile so wide that you couldn't help smiling back even if you happened to be feeling very cross. And, as Susan didn't feel cross in the least, you may imagine how broadly she smiled upon her new neighbor.

"Is this your dog?" asked Phil, eyeing Snuff's bandage with respectful interest. "I'm going to have a dog and a cat and maybe some hens and chickens, too."

Susan related Snuff's accident, and the invalid, feeling all eyes upon him, dropped his head heavily to the ground with a deep sigh and a mournful thud of his tail. Then he opened one eye to see the effect upon his audience.

Susan and Phil broke into laughter at such sly tricks, and Snuff, delighted with his success, beat his tail violently upon the piazza floor.

"I brought over my Noah's Ark," announced Phil, taking from under his arm the gayly painted little house upon which Susan's eyes had been fixed from the first. "We'll play, if you like."

And Susan and Phil, with the ease of old friends, proceeded to marshal the strange little toy animals in line, two by two, behind Mr. and Mrs.

Noah and their stiff and stolid family.

"Now you sing a song," said Phil. "Do you know it?" And without waiting for Susan's shake of the head he burst loudly into tune:

"They marched the animals, two by two, One wide river to cross- The elephant and the kangaroo, One wide river to cross."

"But you see the kangaroo won't stand up, so I have to put the tiger with the elephant. Then you sing it this way"

And he took up the chant again:

"They marched the animals, two by two, One wide river to cross- The elephant and the tigeroo, One wide river to cross."

"Do you like it?" asked Phil, looking up into Susan's face with a smile.

Susan nodded with an energy that set her curls a-bobbing.

"There's Grandmother in the window," said she. "Let's go in and see her."

Grandmother put down her knitting to welcome Philip, and bade Susan pa.s.s the cinnamon cookies.

"I know my mother likes me to eat them," announced Phil, silent until he had disposed of his cooky, "because she wants me to grow fat."

"Perhaps she would like you to take another one," said Grandmother, hiding a smile and pa.s.sing the plate again.

"I was sick," went on Phil, whose tongue seemed loosened by the second cinnamon cooky. "I was sick so long I nearly all melted away. My father calls me Spindle Shanks. But I'm going to grow big and fat now-if I eat enough," he added with his eyes on the plate of cakes.

Each with a cooky in hand and an extra one in Phil's pocket, Susan escorted her new friend down Featherbed Lane in the hope that Grandfather would invite them into the office.

He was writing busily, but when Susan and Phil, clinging to the window-sill, all but pressed their noses against the pane, Grandfather put down his pen and motioned them to come in.

"How do you do, sir," said Grandfather as Phil shook hands in true manly fashion. "So you are my next-door neighbor. I hope we shall be good friends."

"Oh, he will, Grandfather," said Susan, speaking up for her new acquaintance, who, standing speechless, allowed his gaze to travel from the high boots up to the quizzical brown eyes looking so pleasantly down upon him.

"Well, neighbor, we shall have to fatten you up a little, I'm thinking,"

remarked Grandfather heartily, observing thin little Phil in his turn.

"Yes," agreed Phil, finding his tongue at last and taking a nibble of his cooky as if to begin the fattening process at once.

"I mean to eat and grow fat. My mother wants me to; she said so. My father calls me Spindle Shanks," he added, as if rather proud of his new name.

"Is that so?" said Grandfather with interest. "Now I shouldn't have thought of calling you that. But I might have called you 'Pint o'

Peanuts' if any one had asked me."

Phil and Susan went off into a fit of laughter at this funny name, and when they recovered Grandfather remarked gravely:

"The best thing to do in a case like this is to build up an appet.i.te.

Susan, you go with Philip up to his house and ask his mother if she will let him take a little drive with Parson Drew and you and me over to Green Valley. Be sure to tell her it's to work up an appet.i.te. Then cut across and tell Grandmother we are going to the Green Valley Court-House and that we shall be home by five o'clock."

Grandfather was forced to stand on the doorstep and call the last part of his directions after Susan. For at the first mention of a drive she had caught Phil's hand and started on a run up the driveway leading to his house.