 at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show
it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without offering one
to Maggie. Lucy had said, »Maggie, shouldn't you like one?« but Tom was deaf.
    Still the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the
stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert the mind
temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the beginning of
beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there -
bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens, with their feathers all
turned the wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew and screamed and dropped their
pretty-spotted feathers; pouter-pigeons and a tame magpie; nay, a goat, and a
wonderful brindled dog, half mastiff half bull-dog, as large as a lion. Then
there were white railings and white gates all about, and glittering weathercocks
of various design, and garden-walks paved with pebbles in beautiful patterns -
nothing was quite common at Garum Firs: and Tom thought that the unusual size of
the toads there was simply due to the general unusualness which characterised
uncle Pullet's possessions as a gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were
naturally leaner. As for the house, it was not less remarkable: it had a
receding centre, and two wings with battlemented turrets, and was covered with
glittering white stucco.
    Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from the window, and
made haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept always in this fortified
condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to know of the glass-case
of stuffed birds in the hall, and to contemplate rushing in and carrying it away
on their heads. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her
sister was within hearing said, »Stop the children, for God's sake, Bessy -
don't let 'em come up the door-steps: Sally's bringing the old mat and the
duster, to rub their shoes.«
    Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes on:
the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled particularly
against this shoe-wiping, which he always considered in the light of an
indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeables incident
to a visit at aunt Pullet's, where he had once been compelled to sit with towels
wrapped round his boots; a fact which
