"John Thomas Hennesy!" exclaimed Miss Billy, clasping her hands in ecstasy: "A load,--_a whole load_,--of black dirt?"
"Why sure," said John Thomas, reddening with pleasure. "They're just dumping it into an old quarry."
"A whole load of black dirt!" said Miss Billy, musingly. "I'll have pansies, and sweet-peas, and geraniums, and I'll sow grass seed on the bad places in the yard. John Thomas Hennesy, you're a prize!"
That evening, as the Lee family assembled around the tea-table, the minister said cheerily, "I had a peculiar thing to be thankful for to-day. It was the song and whistle of a light-hearted boy. It helped me with my sermon."
"I have to be thankful for a daughter who took the cake baking off my hands and helped me with the mending," said Mrs. Lee, smiling over at Beatrice.
"I am thankful for John Thomas Hennesy and black dirt!" declared Miss Billy fervently.
"And I," wound up Theodore proudly, "for getting a steady Saturday job, taking care of Brown's soda fountain, at a dollar a day!"
"Of course I'm interested in my neighbour: Why shouldn't I be? That fence between us only whets my appetite."
AT the same hour the Hennesy family were having six o'clock dinner in the kitchen. Mrs. Hennesy, Marie Jean and John Thomas were already seated at the table, but Mr. Hennesy still stood with his head enveloped in the roller towel at the kitchen sink.
"An' ye say her name is Billy, John Thomas?" inquired Mrs. Hennesy, serving the corned beef and cabbage with a liberal hand. "Sure now, it must be a mistake. Maybe it's Milly ye're afther hearin' thim call her. Sure an' Billy's no girl's name at all."
"It's Billy," persisted John Thomas, between mouthfuls of cabbage. "Her real name is Wilhelmina, but it was so long and hard they've called her Miss Billy ever since she was a little girl. The Miss is always in front of it though. That makes it feminoine."
"Saints have mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Hennesy. "Wilhelmina! It must be Indian! Mary Jane, you ought to be thankful for your own name, that you ought, afther hearin' this wan."
"An' not be thryin' to copy afther thim Frinch quanes that got their heads cut off fer their impidence," put in Mr. Hennesy, emerging from the towel with every hair on end, and seating himself at the table with the scant ceremony of rolling down his shirt sleeves.