Anna on the Farm by Mary Downing Hahn, Diane de Groat

enchanted steed, Silver Heels."
    Feeling a little lonesome, she trudges to the mailbox just in time to see Mr. O'Reilly trying to cram the catalog inside. "I'll take that," she says.
    Mr. O'Reilly turns, surprised to see Anna standing there. "You must be Aggie's niece," he says. "Anna Sherwood, I believe."
    Anna curtsies, showing off what she learned in Madame Tucker's dancing class. "And you are Mr. O'Reilly."
    "Right you are!"
    "The man who knows everything there is to know about everybody!"
    Mr. O'Reilly raises his eyebrows, as white and bushy as Santa's. "Now, where did you ever hear such a thing?"
    Anna giggles. "Theodore told me."
    "Oh, he did, did he?" Mr. O'Reilly chuckles and fans himself with Aunt Aggie's
Journal.
"Well, well, I won't deny it. The only folks who might know more than me are the doctor, the minister, and the undertaker, but they don't talk as much as I do."
    "Will you tell me some news?" she asks. "Aunt Aggie wants to hear everything you know."
    "Well, now, let me see what's fit to pass on to a child such as yourself." Mr. O'Reilly thinks a moment. "Mrs. Baxter had her baby this morning," he says. "A fine healthy boy name of Daniel. He weighed almost ten pounds, and it took poor Mrs. Baxter twelve hours of hard work to bring him into this world. I sure hope the child's worth it."
    Mr. O'Reilly pauses to swat a fly crawling on his nose. "Mr. Otis Crawford came home from his trip to Philadelphia with a bad cough," he tells Anna, "but Mrs. Crawford says he'll soon be on the mend if he just stops talking for a while. Mr. Joseph Benson fell off a ladder and broke his arm in two places."
    Mr. O'Reilly swats at the fly again. "Pesky critter," he mutters.
    "Anything else?" Anna asks.
    "Oh, by golly, yes. The best news of all." Mr. O'Reilly tweaks one of Anna's braids. "Miss Eleanor Bartlett has finally gotten herself a beau, a weedy young chap by the name of Henry Colston from Baltimore. Her folks are praying nothing goes wrong between now and the wedding. They need her bedroom so they can take in lodgers. They thought she'd never clear out!"
    Mr. O'Reilly puts his car in gear. "Now, I must be off to pass on the news about you. But before I go, would you mind telling me the true story of how you got yourself soaking wet on a sunny day?"
    Anna laughs. "Nell Webster and I fell in the creek together," she says proudly.
    "You and Nell Webster, eh?" Mr. O'Reilly grins. "Now, there's a girl who won't wait long to be married. Why, I hear she's got half the young men in Prince Georges County courting her. The other half are either married already or haven't seen her yet."
    Mr. O'Reilly eases the car forward. "Now, you tell your aunt everything I told you, Miss Anna. She'll be anxious to hear the details!"
    Anna stands in the road and watches Mr. O'Reilly's car disappear over the hill in a thick cloud of dust. Anna can hear it long after it's out of sight. She hopes she can remember everything he told her.
    Aunt Aggie is so excited to see the catalog, she doesn't notice Anna's wet clothes. While her aunt thumbs through the pages looking for gas ranges, Anna tells her the news. Aunt Aggie is especially pleased to hear about the Baxters' baby.
    "Mr. Baxter's been wanting a boy for a long time," she says. "Maybe now he'll quit pestering Mrs. Baxter. Six girls and one boy. Surely that's enough children for anybody."
    Like Mr. O'Reilly, Aunt Aggie is happy to learn Eleanor Bartlett has finally acquired a beau. "Such a sweet girl," she says. "It's not her fault she's no beauty. We get what we get when we come into this world. And that's the truth."
    "Nell Webster has oodles of beaus," Anna says.
    "Indeed she does. More than you can shake a stick at." Aunt Aggie looks up from the catalog and stares at Anna. "Where did you see Nell? And how do you come to be so damp?"
    "She came riding by while I was waiting for Mr. O'Reilly." Anna leans back in her chair and remembers exactly how Nell looked in her jodhpurs and jacket. "She