"I thought she would just row around the island, and then come back and hail us, at all events," said Eunice, laying down her book and standing up to give the call. The "wah-whoo-wah!" rang across the water, but brought no answering cry. They gave it again and again, with no better success.

"What geese we were to let that child go away with the boat!" exclaimed Edna, vexedly. "We should have known better. Likely as not she's rowed over to Plymouth and forgotten us entirely. Let's go up and see if we can see her from the top of the rocks."

Accordingly they climbed to the highest point. It was high noon now, by the sun, and very hot. Not a sail was in sight, nor even a rowboat anywhere.

Everybody had evidently been driven in by the heat, which was intense. The tide was going out, and soon a mud-flat would lie between them and the home shore.

"Gracious, isn't it sizzling hot!" cried Eunice, shading her eyes. "The heat just quavers up from these rocks. I believe a coffee-pot would boil if you put it on top of my head. Where is Cricket?"

"The tide is going out very fast," said Edna, anxiously. "Look at the high-water mark. If we're not off here in less than half an hour we have to wait till the tide is up again. That's a nice prospect, too, to stay here and broil all the afternoon."

"Horrors!" cried Eunice. "I like to stay here when I want to, but I don't want to be made to. When could we get off, then?" for Eunice knew much less accurately the times and tides than Edna, who always spent her summers at Marbury.

"It was high tide at eight this morning, so it won't be entirely out till two. But you know there is about an hour and a half before ebb tide that the flats are bare, and, of course, it's the same time after that before enough water comes in to float a boat. I don't believe it's more than twelve now. Think of staying here till, say, four o'clock. Let's call again. She might be over on the other side of Clark's Island."

"Wah-whoo-wah! Wah-whoo-wah! Come back, Cricket! Wah-whoo-wah!" Eunice sent her clear, strong voice ringing across the smooth waters, but with no better success than before.

"You don't suppose she's purposely hiding somewhere, do you?" asked Edna, doubtfully.

"No, indeed," returned Eunice, promptly. "She's only forgotten, if anything, unless something has happened to her," she added, somewhat anxiously.

"Nothing could happen in Marbury Bay," replied Edna, positively. "It's the safest old hole. And since we are not really in the South Sea Islands, there aren't any cannibals to eat her up."

The island was only about a mile and a half from shore, and they could plainly see grandma's house on the Neck. Not a soul was in sight, not even Eliza and the children.

"Let's wave a handkerchief," suggested Eunice, looking for hers, "for the boys may see it and come out for us."

"It's not much use," said Edna, "for I don't believe any one would notice a little white handkerchief fluttering over here, and, besides, I'm getting dreadfully afraid that there isn't time for any one to pull out here and get us in before the tide would be so far out that we would stick in the mud. You see the bottom is so flat that the water goes out very quickly. But let's try a handkerchief."

"I haven't any with me," said Eunice. "Take yours."

"Bother! I haven't either. Oh, there's a boat coming past. If that man would take us in, we might just get to the shore. Wave something. Call! Call!"

The girls shouted vigorously, but the little rowboat aggravatingly kept on its way, the oarsman having his back towards them. Then he turned his course a little, keeping in the channel where the water was deeper.

"What can we wave?"

"Take your work, Edna. Tie it to a stick."

"Tie my work to a stick? Why, it would ruin it."

"No, it wouldn't. What if it did? We don't want to stay here all day;" and Eunice caught the linen scarf from Edna's half-unwilling hand, and, tying it to a stick, waved it furiously.

"Oh, dear, I wonder if it will ruin it? Wave harder, Eunice. Wah-whoo-wah! Why don't you turn, whoever you are! I wonder if I can iron it out," went on poor Edna, distracted between the fear of injury to her beloved work and her desire to get off the island. But the little boat pulled swiftly down the channel, its owner evidently not desirous of being caught himself on the mud-flats, and was soon a speck on the water.

"Where can Cricket be?" wondered Eunice, for the hundredth time. "Edna, I am afraid she's drowned or something," for she began to be much more worried over Cricket's non-appearance than at the prospect of spending a few more hours than they had intended on the island.

"I'm sure nothing has happened to her. Cricket will never be drowned, don't be afraid. I think she's just plain gone off and forgotten us—that bad girl! Won't I make the boys tease her for this! There! perhaps I can iron that out smooth."



CHAPTER VII.

THE EXILES.

Eunice made a telescope of her hands and studied the shore intently.

"Isn't that our boat, now, drawn up by those rocks? No, not near the docks, but up to the right."

Edna followed her gaze.

"I do think it is! Yes, and that's Billy, isn't it? and those little things are the twins. And Eunice! that's Cricket, this instant! See she's standing up now. I know her by the broad white flannel collar on her blue dress. Now they are coming down to the beach. She did row over for something and sat down to talk, and forgot us. What crazy lunatics we were to let her go off with the boat!"

"Cricket hasn't forgotten anything serious since she forgot mamma's invitation last spring. You see, she never thought about the tide going out, and meant to come back and get us later. It takes so long to get used to the tide. I do wish it would settle upon some time of day, and keep to it. Don't you? It's a great nuisance."

"I guess I do," replied Edna, with inelegant emphasis. "If I had my way, the tide shouldn't go out but once a day, and that's at night. These ugly old mud-flats that have to be seen some time during every day are the one thing that spoil Marbury. It's so pretty when the bay is full. But, Eunice, we've got to make up our minds to stay here and broil, this whole afternoon. Even if Cricket should start this minute, she couldn't get here. Do you see that broad, smooth place, with the water rippling a little on each side? That means that there is a mud-flat there, and it will be bare in about ten minutes. Oh, goodness gracious me! enchanting prospect!" and Edna plumped herself down on the rock in despair.

"It's no worse really than many a time when we've been over here and staid five or six hours and meant to," said Eunice, philosophically, "only we never happened to be caught and obliged to stay. And it might be worse," she added, cheerfully. "We have luncheon, for one thing. You know we stayed here all day, once."

"But then we expected to," said Edna, looking very unresigned. "We had made up our minds to."

"Very well, then," said Eunice, brightly, "let us make up our minds to stay, now. Let's play we want to, and meant to all the time. We'll eat our luncheon, and then you can embroider and I'll read to you some more. Or let's go on playing that we're shipwrecked, and that Cricket has gone back with a raft to the ship, to bring some things back. Of course, that would take all day."

"If the ship was burned," objected Edna, "there wouldn't be any wreck to bring things from."

"We'll play it rained and put out the fire," returned Eunice, imperturbably. "Plenty of ways to fix it. Wasn't it fortunate we rescued your work and my book from the wreck," she went on, changing her tone. "And don't let's stay here and bake in the sun any longer. I'm just drizzling away. Come back to the rocks and eat our luncheon. There's evidently no use waiting any longer for Cricket," she added, with a laugh. "We'll have a lovely afternoon, and we'll pretend we meant to stay all the time."

"Oh, pretend! I believe you girls would pretend if you were going to be hung. You'd play you liked it," said Edna, laughing, herself.

"Why not?" answered Eunice, sturdily. "It makes things lots easier. Besides, it's more fun. Do you suppose auntie and grandma will worry when we're not back to dinner?"

"No, because I told mamma where we were going, and Cricket will have to tell them we're safe, and that she's forgotten us. We can't be run away with very well, and nothing can happen to us here. And, why, Eunice! look! isn't that Cricket, now, rowing towards us? No, this way. Not far from shore."

"It is! it is! Wah-whoo-wah! wah-whoo-wah! Naughty, naughty Cricket! wah-whoo-wah!" shrieked Eunice, clapping her hands.

But Edna instantly put her hands to her mouth to form a trumpet, and called with all her might:

"Go back, Cricket! go back! You'll get aground."

"Wah-whoo-wah!" came back faintly over the water, and they could see the little figure bend to the oar.

"Go back!" screamed Edna, fairly dancing up and down in her excitement, for she knew what would happen better than Eunice did. But Cricket evidently did not understand. She looked over her shoulder, waved her oar, and pulled on.

"Oh, dear," cried Edna, "see, that mud-flat back of her will be all bare in two minutes, and she doesn't know it, and she's pulling right across it. Oh, oh, she's aground!"

And, indeed, the last stroke of the oars had landed the boat on the treacherous bank, where it stuck fast. The girls watched her, eagerly, as the oars came up, dripping with mud, in her frantic efforts to push over it.

"Why doesn't she sit still?" exclaimed Edna, anxiously. "She'll get the boat wedged fast!"

But, by some good luck, one final shove of the oars sent the light boat through the yielding mud, and into a little depression beyond, where the water still flowed. Cricket pulled with all her strength, realizing now the inconvenience of being stuck fast. There was still another flat, which was fast uncovering itself, between her and the island, but if she could only get through that, there was water enough beyond to float her to the island. That had a rock foundation, and the water was unexpectedly deep around it. But, unfortunately, the next mud-flat was too wide to get over it before the swiftly ebbing tide left it entirely bare, and so there, within five hundred feet of the island, she finally stuck, immovably. The girls ran down to the edge of the island, waving their hands, and shouting.

"I—guess—I'm—stuck!" called Cricket, standing up, carefully, and turning around. Fortunately her voice could just be heard.

Eunice and Edna laughed at the obvious truth of her remark.

"I should think she was stuck! What a little goose to try to get out here when the tide was so low!"

"She isn't used to it," said Eunice, defensively. "See, now. Five minutes ago there seemed to be water enough in the bay, and now look at it!"

It was a sight to look at, for the broad mud-flats were now visible in every direction, while streams of water still lay in the deeper depressions.

"I never noticed before, in all my life, how quickly the tide goes out," added Eunice.

"We never happened to be caught on a desert island before," said Edna, "when you have to notice it. I suppose we get so in the habit of calculating upon it, and knowing by the looks of the water how long it will take, that we forget you don't know so well. But what will Cricket do? Think of her staying out there for about four hours, in that broiling sun, and nothing to eat. Gracious, she has the worst of it."

"Couldn't she take off her shoes and stockings, and wade in through the mud?" suddenly asked Eunice, brightening.

"No, indeed. She'd sink down to China, I guess. There's just about no bottom at all to this mud, if you step in it. Keep—perfectly—still—Cricket," she hallooed, suddenly, through her hands, as Cricket shows signs of restlessness.

"What will she do?" groaned Eunice. "It seems perfectly heartless to sit down and eat our luncheon, when she can't get a mouthful."

"But our not eating won't do her any good," objected Edna, very sensibly.

"Anyway, I'm not going to eat anything, with my Cricket out there, starving," cried Eunice, determinedly.

"But Eunice! how silly! It won't help Cricket any. She wouldn't like to have you not eat."

"I sha'n't eat a mouthful," replied Eunice, obstinately, shaking her head.

"Well, then, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll eat just one tiny sandwich apiece, so we won't just die with hunger, then we'll call to Cricket that we won't eat the rest till she can get in here. Then we'll eat it before we go back."

"Yes, I'll do that," answered Eunice, after considering a moment. And then they called to Cricket.

"We—won't—eat—any—luncheon—till you—get—here. Can—you—wait?"

"Have—to!" called back Cricket, cheerfully. "Will—it—be—long?"

"Three—or—four—hours!" answered Edna. "Keep—as—still—as—you—can, —so—the—boat—won't—sink. Can she keep still?" added Edna, to Eunice.

"I think so," answered Eunice, somewhat doubtfully, it must be confessed. Then they sat down, and, opening their luncheon, selected a small sandwich each. It really took considerable self-control not to satisfy two hearty appetites, then and there, for the luncheon looked very tempting. But Eunice resolutely put the basket away.

"What will auntie think?" asked Eunice, anxiously, glancing toward the shore. "It's dinner-time, I guess."

"There are the boys, now," cried Edna. "Yes, it's dinner-time, and they've come down to see where we are." She stood up and waved her bureau cover. The boys, catching sight of the signal, waved frantically in return. Presently, all the others, grandma, auntie, old Billy, and the children, were seen to gather there. The boys ran up and down the beach, then all the figures clustered together, evidently holding a council of war.

"There's just nothing to be done," sighed Edna, "except to wait for the water."

"Wait for the water, and we'll all take a ride," sang Eunice. "It's really much harder for them to be anxious about us, and about Cricket, than for us to be here. And hardest of all for Cricket. For pity's sake! what is the child doing?"

In watching the shore people, they had forgotten for a moment the stranded boat and its small occupant. As they looked again, they saw she had stuck the oars in the mud, blade down, and was now evidently lashing them to the oar-locks. This done, she stood up and slipped off the blue flannel skirt of her little sailor suit, standing up in her short white petticoat. She hung the skirt by the hem over the oars, and immediately she had a very fair substitute for a tent, to shield her from the blazing sun. Then, apparently quite contented, she sat down in the bottom of the boat, adjusting the cushion from the stern seat, for a back. She had her face towards the island, and, when she was comfortably settled, she waved her hand, crying out:

"Isn't—this—exciting? I'm—playing—I'm—Marco—Bozzaris—in—his—shrouded—tent."

After their consultation, the shore people had evidently decided there was nothing to be done for the shipwrecked mariner and her exiled companions, as presently every one went into the house.

"Think of the soup and roast beef they're devouring!" sighed Eunice, with a thrill of envy,—but she stood fast to her resolution not to eat luncheon till Cricket could have some, too.

Fortunately, there was no special danger for Cricket, unless she actually tumbled out of the boat into the deep, soft mud, which she could scarcely do, unless she deliberately jumped out, so securely was the boat held. So the time went on, and Eunice and Edna, after a while, submitted to the inevitable, and resumed work and reading, stopping now and then to look towards Cricket, and call out sympathizing messages.

"Isn't—it—nice—I'm—near—enough—to—talk—to—you?" called back this little Mark Tapley once.

"Are—you—very—hungry?" shouted Eunice, after a long lapse in this high-keyed conversation. But there was no answer, and, looking again, they saw that Cricket's head was down on her arm, which was stretched out over the seat.

"She's actually gone to sleep!" said Eunice, in amazement. "Well, I never knew Cricket to go to sleep in the daytime before in her life."

"I should think she'd do anything for variety," returned Edna. "If this isn't the longest day that ever was! I should think it was to-morrow morning. It's worse than that day last summer when we went blackberrying and came home at ten in the morning, thinking it was six. Do you remember?"

"I should think I did! I never had a chance to forget it," answered Eunice, "between papa and Donald. I suppose it was funny to them, but I never could see how the time seems so long to us."

"Oh, look, look!" cried Edna, suddenly. "Do you see that little ripple where the water lies in the channel? The tide is turning at last. In an hour or so, now, the water will be high enough for Cricket to get over here at least,—though we can't get home for a long time yet."

If the time had dragged before, this last hour fairly crawled. Eagerly the girls watched the strengthening ripples and the eddying current in the channel, as the water slowly crept higher in the outer bay. Slowly the brown ooze became a smooth, even, brown paste, and then, a few minutes later, the usual transformation scene took place. The bay was so protected by the long arm of land that half surrounded it that there was not only no surf, but no large waves even. The first you knew, the deepening water hid the ugly mud-flats, which were so level that only two or three inches of water were needed to transform the bay into a thing of beauty.

"Cricket! Cricket!" shrieked both girls, in eager chorus. "Wake—up! wake—up! the—tide's—coming—in. Crick—et!"

Cricket, evidently bewildered, sat up, and looked around her, then grasped the situation. Quickly she pulled down her tent, and restored her skirt to its original use. She unlashed her oars, and adjusted them in the oar-locks.

"Push—off—as—soon—as—you—can!" called Edna. "Rock—the—boat—to—loosen—it."

Cricket obeyed instructions. She kept up a steady swaying movement, dipping her oars lightly in the deepening water. At last, like Longfellow's ship, "she starts! she moves!"

"Hurrah!" shouted Cricket, waving her oar, and then applying it vigorously. "I'm off!"

One more determined shove and she was off, and her boat floated in the hollow between herself and the island. It was but a moment's work then to pull in shore. If the two sisters had been parted for a year, they could not have greeted each other more rapturously. They rushed into each other's arms, kissing and hugging each other, while Edna declared she would eat up all the luncheon if they didn't stop.

"If I'm not starved!" cried Cricket, eagerly falling to as soon as the luncheon was opened. "I almost thought I'd eat my shoes out in the boat. It was awfully good of you not to eat anything till I got here."

"There's enough to last us till we get home, anyway," said Edna, munching away at the sandwiches with much satisfaction. "Now tell us, Cricket, what became of you?"

"Nothing became of me. I thought I'd row over home for a drink, and old Billy and the children were down on the beach, and I took them out for a little row, and I played they were castaways from the burning ship. Then I took them in, and sat down to rest, and then I thought it was time to come back for you. I never thought about the tide, and there seemed to be plenty of water around, and suddenly I found the water had all turned into mud."

"Cricket, your stockings are all coming down," interrupted Eunice.

"Yes, I know," said Cricket, coolly, stopping long enough to produce her side-elastics from her pocket. "I took off my stocking-coddies to tie the oars up with, to make my tent. Why, I had lots of fun, girls. I couldn't think of any shipwrecked hero who was ever stuck in the mud, so I played the mud was a desert, and that I was Marco What's-his-name in his shrouded tent, and—"

"It was the Turk, who was at midnight in his shrouded tent," interrupted Eunice, again.

"Was it? Well, I played it, anyway. Then I put my head down on my arm to look like him, and I must have gone to sleep, for the sun was pretty hot, even under my tent, and it made me dreadfully sleepy. Then I heard you call me, and there was the water all around me. Can't we start, now, Edna?"

"We can't get over that last bar nearest the shore, yet awhile," answered Edna, "but we can start as soon as there is the least bit of water over it, for by the time we get there the water will be deep enough to float us."

"I don't care how long we stay, now," said Eunice, contentedly, "since Cricket is here, and not out there all alone. I'll row in, Cricket."

"See, there are the boys running along the shore, and beckoning. Probably they mean it is safe to start now. Let's get ready. My goody, doesn't it seem as if we had been here a week?"

"Don't let's come again till it's high tide in the middle of the day," said Eunice. "Here, now we have the things all in."

"Isn't this boat a spectacle?" said Eunice, surveying its mud-splashed sides. "Won't the boys give you a blessing, Miss Scricket!"

"A blessing is a good thing to have," answered Cricket, quite undisturbed, as she yielded the oars to Eunice, and sat in the stern with Edna.



CHAPTER VIII.

A NEW PLASTER.

"It seems to me, my dear," said grandma, standing on the piazza, and drawing on her gloves, "that it is a very great risk to run to go and leave those children to themselves for six whole hours. If you could manage without me, I think I'll stay at home, even now," and grandma looked somewhat irresolutely at the carriage, which was waiting at the gate to take them to the station.

"I am afraid you must come, mother, on account of those business matters," Mrs. Somers answered. "But the children will be all right, I know. Eliza will look out for the small fry, and the elders must look out for themselves," she added, looking down at the three, Eunice, Edna, and Cricket, with a smile. "Don't get into any mischief, will you?"

The girls looked insulted.

"The very idea, auntie!" exclaimed Eunice. "As if we ever got into mischief! Nobody looks after us especially, at Kayuna."

"And, consequently," said auntie, with a sly smile, "you go to the cider-mill when you are put in charge of the children, and get run away with by the oxen."

Eunice got very red.

"Well, that was a great while ago, auntie, when we were quite young," she said, with as much dignity as if the occurrence auntie referred to was half a dozen years ago, instead of one. "Anyway," changing the subject, "we'll look after everything now, and you can stay till the last train, if you want to."

"No, dear, thank you. We'll come on the 5.10, I think, at any rate. Perhaps earlier, if we accomplish all our business. There! I didn't put on my watch. Edna, will you run up-stairs and get it, from my bureau or table? I think I laid it on the table. No, wait. Have you yours, mother? Never mind, then, Edna. But will you please put it back in my drawer, when you go up-stairs, dear? Don't forget. Well, good-by. Be good children," and with a kiss all round, auntie and grandma got into the carriage.

"Good-by. Be sure and bring me some chocolate caramels," called Edna.

Auntie smiled, nodded, and waved her hand, and then Luke turned the corner, and they rolled away.

"The boys said that the tide would be right for bathing, about eleven," Cricket said, after they had watched them out of sight. "Come on, it's most time," and off they trooped for their plunge. The children were already over at the Cove, with Eliza, running about in their little blue bathing-suits, though they generally went in only ankle deep. Edna could swim well, and Cricket had made good progress in the last week. Eunice took to the water as naturally as a duck, and, strange to say, had learned to swim well, before Cricket did.

After their bath they came back to the house, where Eunice and Cricket settled themselves on the piazza, to write letters to the travellers. Cricket kept a journal letter and scribbled industriously every day. Both Eunice and Cricket had sometimes very homesick moments, when papa and mamma seemed very far away, and Cricket, in particular, occasionally conjured up very gloomy possibilities of her pining away, and dying of homesickness, before they returned, so that when they should come home, they would find only her grave, covered with flowers. She even went so far, in one desperate moment, as to compose a fitting epitaph for her tombstone, which was to be of white marble, of course, with an angel on top.

This was the epitaph.

"Oh, stranger, pause! Beneath this mossy stone Lies a poor child, who died, forsaken and alone. Her mother far in distant lands did roam, Leaving her daughter, Jean, to die at home. She pined away in sad and lonely grief, Not any pleasures brought to her relief, And when at last her family returned, With sorrow great, about her death they learned. So, pause, oh, stranger! drop a single tear, Pity the grief of her who liest here."

This effusion was the greatest consolation to Cricket. She never showed it to anybody, not even to Eunice, but she often took it out, and read it with much satisfaction, and was almost inclined to begin pining away directly.

But on the whole they were very contented, and it was much easier for them than if they had been left at Kayuna.

Dinner-time—dinner was a one o'clock feast, in the summer—came when they had finished their letters, and had them ready for the mail.

"We'll have the European letters to-night," said Eunice, joyfully, as they sat down to the table. "Does it seem as if we'd been here two weeks? Mamma won't seem so far away, when we get the first letters."

"There was the cablegram," said Edna.

"That doesn't count," said Eunice. "It wasn't mamma's own dear handwriting."

"Papa writed it," chirped in Helen.

"No, he didn't, goosie," said Cricket. "The man here wrote it. Papa only sent it."

"I know!" exclaimed Zaidee. "Papa talked it into the box, and the man writed it down when he talked," confusing the telephone at home with the cablegram, which, directed to Miss Eunice Ward, as the eldest representative, had been the occasion of much excitement on its arrival.

After dinner the three girls started down on the beach, to sit down under the rocks till it should be cool enough, later, to go for a ride with the ponies.

"There comes the baby, all alone," said Cricket, presently, as that young man slipped out of the yard all by himself, and ran across the road and down towards the beach where the girls were. "Doesn't he look cunning? The darling!"

Kenneth, although he was nearly four, was still The Baby to the family. His broad-brimmed hat hung down his back, held around his chin by its elastic, and his golden hair was rampant. His blue eyes were dancing with mischief, and his hands were clasped behind his back.

"Dess what I dot?" he demanded, pausing at a safe distance, and looking up roguishly from under his long lashes.

"What have you there, baby? See what he has, Cricket, and tell him he mustn't have it," said Eunice.

"Bring it to Cricket, baby," said that young lady, holding out her hand.

"Dess what I dot," repeated the baby, edging off a little.

Just then Zaidee appeared from the house. Kenneth immediately trotted off up the beach at the sight of her. She ran after him.

"Do away!" he cried, holding his possession, whatever it was, more tightly. "You tan't have it, Zaidee. I dot it."

"What's the matter, Zaidee?" called Eunice. "Where's Eliza?"

"She's dressing Helen. Eunice, Kenneth has auntie's gold watch. She left it on the little table where she keeps her God-books"—for so the twins always called the Bible and Prayer-book—"and he's run off with it. I guess auntie forgot it. Ought he to have it, Eunice?"

"Of course not," said Eunice, springing up. "Edna, auntie told us to put it away, and we forgot it. Dear me! I hope he won't drop it. Baby, come here and give the watch to Eunice." She went slowly towards him, holding out her hand.

But baby hugged his treasure. "I dot tick-tick!" he announced, triumphantly. "Tennet likes it. Oo tan't have it," and off he started as fast as two little legs could carry him, over the soft sand till he reached the firmer beach, which the receding tide had left hard.

Eunice sprang after him. The baby looked back over his shoulder, greatly enjoying the race, tripped over a bit of stone, and fell headlong, the watch shooting on ahead. He gave a frightened cry as he fell, but the next instant, when Eunice reached him, he lay motionless. Hurriedly she raised him up. A stream of blood poured from an ugly gash in his poor little forehead, cut on a piece of glass that was half imbedded in the sand. As she raised him his golden head fell back heavily, and his eyes were closed.

"Oh, girls, girls!" shrieked Eunice. "Kenneth is dead! he's killed! he's killed!"

Cricket and Edna were already by her side.

"Run, Zaidee—Edna—run for Eliza. Get some water, Cricket. Oh, baby, speak to me," poor frightened Eunice cried, half beside herself at the gruesome sight of the baby's white, still face, and that dreadful blood welling up so fast, and staining everything with its vivid red. Cricket flew to the edge of the beach, dipping water up in the crown of her sailor hat. She tore off her soft Windsor tie to use for a handkerchief (which, of course, she didn't have), to wipe off the streaming blood. The little face looked ghastly white, in contrast to the blood-soaked hair about it.

Eliza came flying from the house with the Pond's Extract bottle in one hand and a bundle of old linen in the other, articles that were always at hand, ready for use.

"Bring him into the shade," she called, as she ran, and Eunice, with Kenneth in her arms, hurried up the beach. Eliza took him as they met, and fairly flew back into the yard.

"Oh, Billy!" she called, passing him, "go for the doctor as fast as you can. Kenneth's dreadfully hurt. No, Miss Edna, you go. You can go quicker;" and Edna flew.

Eliza, frightened herself by the child's unconsciousness, dropped on the grass under a tree, trying to stanch the blood that now flowed less freely. Eunice ran for hartshorn, Cricket for water. As they washed away the blood, they could see the long, ugly cut just over his eye. Eliza laid linen bandages soaking in Pond's Extract over the place, but in a moment they were stained through.

Edna came rushing back, panting and breathless.

"The doctor's gone away—won't be back for ever so long—they'll send him right over when he comes. Oh, Eliza! will Kenneth die?"

Zaidee set up a shriek at the word.

"Be still, Zaidee," ordered Cricket, slipping her hand over the little girl's mouth. "You go and find poor Helen, and help her finish her dressing."

Zaidee went off, sobbing, and Eunice asked, anxiously:

"Couldn't we plaster it up ourselves? I know papa says the edges of a cut like that ought to be drawn together as soon as possible, and bandaged. I know how he does it. He sops the place off, and washes the cut out, and puts strips of sticking-plaster over it, and then ties it up in a dry bandage."

"Oh, it's a head you have, Miss Eunice," said Eliza, who showed her Irish blood by her terror.

"You get some sticking-plaster, Miss Cricket, while I sop off the blood. Oh, my pretty! my pretty! See! he's opening his eyes. Do you know 'Liza, lovey?"

The heavy blue eyes opened, languidly, and the yellow head stirred a little. The motion set the blood flowing again.

"Kenneth," said Eunice, bending down beside him; "here's sister! wake him up, if you can, 'Liza. Papa wouldn't let Zaidee go to sleep last winter when she fell off the bedstead and bumped her head so. Baby! wake up, pet!" and she kissed him, eagerly.

In a few minutes, Cricket came running out of the house. "We can't find any sticking-plaster, and we've looked everywhere. Edna says she doesn't know if her mother has any. What shall we do? I know it ought to be put together right away, else it wouldn't heal so well. Oh, wait! I know!" and back she darted. Immediately she reappeared with a part of a sheet of postage stamps.

"These will do, 'Liza," she said, excitedly. "Now, is the cut all washed out? Here, I can do it. I've watched papa lots of times."

Cricket knelt down by the baby and dipped a piece of linen in water. The flow of blood was very slight by this time. She wiped Kenneth's forehead off, carefully, over and over, and then the cut itself, looking to see if any bit of glass or sand was still in it. Then, with firm, gentle little fingers, she drew the gaping edges together closely, and held them, while Eunice moistened some postage stamps in water, and laid them in place.

"Cricket! how can you do that? How do you know how?" exclaimed Edna, who kept in the rear, since the sight of the blood made her feel a little faint and sick.

"I've seen papa loads of times," answered Cricket, in her matter-of-fact way. "If only we had some surgeon's plaster. But that will hold for now. Bind this strip tight around it now, 'Liza. Baby, can't you talk a little? Do you know Cricket?"

"Tritet," repeated Kenneth, with a faint little smile. "Tritet take baby."

"Let me have him," begged Cricket, and Eliza laid him gently in his little sister's arms.

"Eunice, there's Mrs. Bemis coming over," said Edna, "I'm so glad."

Mrs. Bemis was the doctor's wife. She came hastily up to the little group.

"I was out when Edna came, and just got in. The girl told me some one was hurt, so I came right over. The baby, is it? poor little soul! has he lost all that blood? did he cut himself?"

Eunice explained, and Cricket told Eliza to unfasten the bandage to ask Mrs. Bemis if it was all right. At the sight of four pink stamps, the doctor's wife exclaimed in astonishment:

"What have you put on for a plaster? It looks beautifully done."

"Them's postage stamps," volunteered Eliza, quickly. "Miss Cricket couldn't find any sticking-plaster, so she brought this. Oh, she's her father's own child for the doctorin'."

"I thought they might do," explained Cricket, rather shyly. "I knew I ought to have strips of plaster, of course, but I couldn't find any. I thought the cut ought to be drawn together as soon as possible."

"You're a thoughtful child," said Mrs. Bemis, warmly.

"But Eunice thought of doing it first," answered Cricket, quickly. "I only thought of the postage stamps."

"He's too heavy for you, my dear," said Mrs. Bemis, then. "Carry him gently into the house, Eliza. He's faint with the loss of so much blood. Let him go, dear," as Cricket demurred. "Eliza can carry him better than you. Let me give him a few drops of this, first," and she moistened the baby's lips with a few drops from a flask she had brought in her hand.

When the little procession reached the hall door, Mrs. Bemis said:

"Let me take care of him now, with Eliza, girls. You keep the twins amused out-of-doors," for Zaidee and Helen came creeping down the staircase, looking frightened to death. The girls willingly turned back, having taken them in charge.

"Oh, the watch!" suddenly exclaimed Edna, and they all raced down to the beach, where the accident had happened. The watch still lay, gleaming in the sunlight, where it had fallen, ticking as unconcernedly as if no adventure had befallen it. Fortunately, it had alighted on a particularly soft bit of sand. Edna picked it up.

"If only I hadn't forgotten to put this away when mamma told me to, all this wouldn't have happened," she said, remorsefully.

"I suppose Kenneth just slipped in there after 'Liza finished dressing him," said Eunice, "and saw it lying on the table. You know he's always teasing auntie to show him her 'tick-tick.'"

They went slowly back into the yard, scarcely knowing what to do with themselves. They could not settle to any of their regular amusements, and nobody wanted to go off riding. The twins were still under the tree, where they had left them. Helen ran towards them.

"Eunice, won't you please make Zaidee stop drinking up all the Pond's Extrap? She says she likes it, and I'm afraid it will kill her," she said, half crying. "I told her to don't, and she didn't don't."

"Put the bottle right down, Zaidee," ordered Eunice, laughing. "If you drink the Pond's Extract, what will you do when you fall down and hurt yourself, next time?"

Zaidee took a last hasty swallow. Strange to say, she did like it, very much.

"I suppose it goes all down inside my legs," she said, with calm conviction, "and if I bump my legs it will do them lots more good inside than outside. Come on, Helen. 'Liza said cook would give us our supper to-night, and she's calling us."

"What funny children," exclaimed Edna. "Does Zaidee really like it?"

"Yes, really. 'Liza keeps the bottle locked up. Isn't it funny?"

Just before auntie and grandma returned, Dr. Bemis came over, and went to see his little patient. He was amused at Cricket's original plaster, for which he carefully substituted the proper article, but he pronounced the dressing of the cut very nicely done, and said that the cut would not have healed so well as he hoped it would now, if it had been left open for that two hours that elapsed before he could get there.



CHAPTER IX.

GEORGE W. AND MARTHA.

A rattling, banging, clattering sound, like a small army of tin pans on a rampage, suddenly woke the echoes one still, sultry afternoon. Auntie Jean thought it was the circus, and sighed as she wondered if they were going to keep it up long enough to make it worth while for her to leave her cool room and her afternoon nap, to go and stop them. Grandma heard it, and supposed it was Cricket, trying some new experiment as a tinware merchant, and hoped she would soon turn her attention to some different employment. Cricket heard it, and promptly started for the scene of action, meeting, in the hall, Eunice and Edna, who came running down-stairs, as well as the boys, who appeared from the kitchen, where they had been foraging for a mid-afternoon lunch.

The disturbance came from the front piazza, but when they went out there nothing, for a moment, was visible, though the same mysterious whacking and banging went on, under the table.

"What is it?" they all exclaimed, but straightway the question was solved, for out from under the table-cover backed a half-grown black kitten, with its head firmly wedged into a tin tomato can. Backing and scratching, as a cat will when its head is covered, the poor little thing, evidently half frantic, tumbled up against the chairs and the side of the house, mewing most frightfully and banging its inconvenient headdress against the piazza floor.

"You poor little cat! Has some horrid boy been abusing you?" cried Cricket, making a dive for it, but dropping it, when she caught it, with equal promptness, as its sharp claws tore her hands. "Why, stop! you dreadful little thing! How you hurt me!"

"Pick it up, boys," begged Edna, as the cat resumed its backward way. "Do get that can off. How did any one ever get it on, do you suppose? Here, kitty! kitty!"

"Curiosity killed a cat, they say," said Will, watching his chance at it. "I suppose it wanted to see the inside of that can, and now that it has seen it, it isn't satisfied. There's no suiting some people. There you are, sir!" and Will, having caught the table-cloth from the table, sending the magazines and papers in a shower to the floor, threw it over the poor little black thing, so that, in picking it up, he could muffle its claws, so that it could not scratch. Its neck was torn a little, with the sharp, rough edges of the tin can, and a redoubled chorus of frightened meows greeted his first attempt to remove it.

"Should think a whole orchestra of cats was shut up in here," Will observed, trying another direction. "Arch, get out your knife, and see if you can rip up this can a little. Jove, but it's snug! We can dispense with a little of that music, my fine fellow. There—you—are," as Archie, with a final careful twist, drew off the can. Once out of its tin bondage, the little creature seemed too frightened to move, and suddenly curled down under the protecting table-cover, to restore its ruffled fur, with many a piteous mew.

The girls gathered around to pet and soothe it.

"Keep away, girls. Don't touch it yet with your hands. It's so frightened still it might scratch you. Here, Cricket, take it in the table-cloth, there. Better give it something to eat. It's a stray cat, and probably half starved, and that's why it tried to eat tomato cans, like a goat."

Cricket bore off her charge to the kitchen, where she fed and soothed it with such good effect that, when she came back, half an hour later, the little black cat cuddled down on her arm, purring like a teakettle in spite of its wounded neck.

"Isn't it a dear?" she said, admiringly. "I think grandma will let me keep it. We haven't any cat in the house since Wallops died, and I love them."

Grandma was entirely willing that the little waif should be added to the family, and so it was legally adopted by Cricket, with all sorts of solemn ceremonies. Then came the naming it, always a serious difficulty.

"I want a very appropriate name," meditated Cricket, aloud.

"The Cat in the Iron Mask," suggested Will.

"Too long. Think of calling all that out when I want him in a hurry."

"Cantankerous," said Archie.

"No, I want a regular name."

"Can-on Farrar, then. That's a regular name, and it's a very appropriate one."

"I don't like that, either. I want just a plain, common, every-day sort of name, like George Washington."

"Very well, take George Washington, then. That is very appropriate indeed. He couldn't tell a lie, and probably your cat can't either."

"Do you think he's dignified enough to be called George Washington!" asked Cricket, doubtfully, watching the Nameless jump around after his tail. She had had him for two days now, and he had quite recovered from his tinny imprisonment. He proved to be a most well-bred and entertaining little cat, for he came when he was called and went when he was bid, in orthodox fashion, and made himself entirely at home.

"Probably George was frisky in his youth," said Will. "Especially when he was courting Martha."

"Then I'll do this: I'll call him George Washington as far as his tail, and I'll call that Martha, because he runs after it. Come here, George W., you've run after Martha long enough now. Come here, and be christened."



And so George Washington he remained to the end of the chapter. He soon learned his name, and would come flying at the first sound of it. He proved to be a pet that required considerable attention. He was of an especially sociable nature, and, if left alone in any room, he would howl in mournful and prolonged meows, that speedily brought some one to the rescue. He tagged the girls like a little dog, and would stand on the shore crying like a child if they went off in the boat and would not take him. He slept in Cricket's bed at night, and if by any chance he was shut out when the family went to bed, and the house was locked up, he would make night hideous with lamentations, to an extent that would soon bring some one down to let him in.

One day the familiar meow sounded, and Cricket, who was curled up in the hammock, reading, instantly sprang up.

"There's George W.," for so his name was generally abbreviated, "and he's shut up somewhere, and I let him out myself only a few minutes ago. I believe he gets into places through the keyholes, and I don't see why he doesn't get out through 'em."

But George was not to be found in any of his usual haunts, and his meows ceasing, Cricket went back to her book. Presently, a prolonged cry was heard again, and again Cricket started in quest of him. She looked and called everywhere, but George W. was nowhere to be found, though his meow, with a quality peculiar to himself, seemed to come from no particular place, but to pervade the air generally.

"Come and help me find George W.," she called to Eunice and Edna, who were also on the piazza. "He's mewing dreadfully, and I can't find him."

"He's worse than a baby," said Eunice, unwinding herself from the comfortable, twisted-up position in the steamer chair, which she loved. "Couldn't you let him cry a little while and give him a lesson?"

"I wouldn't mind giving him a lesson, but I'm afraid he'd give me one in patience," returned Cricket, laughing. "I'm sure I don't want to listen to that music long. There, he's stopped again, now."

But five minutes later, George W. renewed his complaints.

"Now I'm going to let him cry!" said Cricket, returning in despair from another search. So down she sat, shutting her ears to outside sounds in her comfortable fashion.

Presently grandma appeared at the hall door.

"Cricket, my dear, George Washington seems to want something. Don't you think you'd better try and find him?"

"Grandma, he's been crying and weeping for an hour at least, and I just can't find him. But I'll look again."

But wherever George W. was, he was certainly securely hidden. He cried now and then at intervals, but it was impossible to locate the sound, since it came first from one side, then from another.

"He's between the floors somewhere," said Will, who had joined the search. "The question is, where?"

"We'll have to decide that question at once," said auntie, "because we can scarcely have all the floors in the house taken up. How could he have gotten in?"

"Perhaps through some small hole in the garret floor. He's probably forgotten the way back. Or, perhaps there's some hole down cellar where he got inside, and ran up after the mice."

"Perhaps the mice have gotten the best of him, and are tearing him limb from limb," suggested Archie, making such a horrible face that Helen retreated behind Aunt Jean in terror.

All the afternoon they followed the sounds at intervals, listening at the floor, and calling over and over. George W. seemed to be exploring the entire interior of the house. Late in the afternoon, the cries came more constantly from the floor of the trunkroom, a small apartment off the garret, and directly over Eunice's room. There was a small knot-hole in the floor, and the light from a window fell directly on it, probably attracting George W. there. Saws and hatchets were brought, and the boys soon had a piece of the floor up, making a hole large enough for several cats the size of George to come up.

"George evidently likes this sort of thing," said Archie, hacking away. "First the tin can, then the floor. Come out here, old fellow." But he was evidently frightened away by the noise, and could not be induced to come up.

"Bring a saucer of milk, Edna," said Mrs. Somers. "Stand it at one side, and then we will all go away and he will soon come up." So the milk was brought, and as it was supper-time, they all went down and left George W. to his own devices. Cricket was much disposed to stay and make sure that he came up, but she was finally persuaded to come down with the rest.

"Isn't it funny how his voice came from all over?" she said, at the supper-table. "Probably he was right there under the trunkroom floor all the time. He was a regular philanthropist."

"A regular what?" asked grandma and Auntie Jean, together.

"A philanthropist. Don't you know? a man who—who talks where he isn't?"

"A ventriloquist!" said Will. "That's what you mean."

"Do I? Auntie, what is a philanthropist, then?"

"A philanthropist is one who loves man, dear, and who—"

"Then when a girl's engaged, is she a philanthropist?" broke in Cricket, with her glass of milk half raised. The others all laughed.

"She is, very often," said grandma.

"I know the man she is engaged to is called her finance, but I never knew she was called a philanthropist," went on Cricket, thoughtfully.

There was another shout.

"Fiance, dear," said auntie, as soon as she could speak, "and the girl isn't often called a philanthropist, though she often is one."

"Dear me," sighed Cricket. "Words are very puzzling. They seem to be made to say what you don't think."

"Oftentimes, my little Talleyrand," said grandma.

After supper, Cricket ran up to see if George W. had made his appearance yet. A few moments later, the household, assembled on the front piazza, was startled by a crash and a scream in Cricket's voice. With one accord, everybody rushed up-stairs. The sounds seemed to come from Eunice's room. As they opened the door, a cloud of dust poured out, from a mass of plaster that lay on the floor, while from a hole in the ceiling a length of black-stockinged leg kicked wildly. Above, a pair of fists beat a tattoo on the floor, while Cricket called, loudly:

"For goodness' sake, somebody come and pull me up; I'm breaking my other leg off."

Will sprang for the garret stairs, stumbling headlong, at the top, over George W., who took the opportunity to spring over his head, alighting right in the midst of the group of eager children, each of whom was trying to get up-stairs first, and in a moment everybody lay on top of everybody else, at the foot of the staircase.

Will, meantime, found his feet, and went to Cricket's rescue. It was dark in the trunkroom, under the eaves, but there was light enough to see Cricket, with one leg stretched out straight, and the other one so firmly wedged into the hole in the floor that she could not move.

"My leg feels as George W.'s head must have when he was caught in the tomato can," said Cricket, as Will drew up. "It's a pretty tight squeeze. I don't believe there's any skin left on it. I just came up quickly, and I couldn't see very well, and the first thing I knew my foot slipped into a hole, and there was not any floor there, and I slumped through."

"Are you hurt? Is Cricket hurt?" cried everybody, scrambling in, in hot haste.

"Not much," said Cricket, ruefully, feeling her barked knee. "I came down pretty hard on my elbow, and I nearly knocked it up to the top of my head, and my back feels funny, but I'm not hurt, not a bit!"

"What a mercy the child didn't fall all the way through, and go down on the lower floor," said grandma, who had just arrived on the scene.

"Why, I couldn't," said Cricket, surprised. "My other leg stopped me."



CHAPTER X.

THE ECHO CLUB.

Eunice and Edna went sauntering along the beach, with arms around each other's waists. They were bending their steps towards one of their favourite retreats, under some big rocks. It was high tide, and the water lay dimpling and smiling in the sunlight. Down beside the dock, Will and Archie were giving their sailboat, the Gentle Jane, a thorough cleaning and overhauling. Cricket was—the girls didn't know exactly where.

"There she is now," said Eunice, as they came around the rocks. Cricket lay in her favourite attitude, full length on the sand, in which her elbows were buried, with a book under her nose. She sat up as the girls came nearer.

"I have an idea," she announced, beamingly.

"Very hot weather for ideas!" said Eunice, fanning herself with her broad-brimmed hat.

"Eunice, you're dreadfully brilliant, aren't you? Anyway, I have an idea, and I just got it from 'Little Women.'"

Edna threw herself on the sand. "Don't let's do it, if we have to do anything," she said, fanning likewise.

"Now, you're brilliant. But you're a lazybones, you know. Tell us your idea, Cricket."

"You know how Jo and the rest had a club and published a paper? Now, then, let us have a club and publish a paper ourselves. It would be lots of fun."

Eunice and Edna looked rather startled at Cricket's ambition.

"Who would write the pieces for it?" demanded Edna, instantly.

"We would, of course," answered Cricket, superbly. "I'd love to do it."

"Write stories, and poems, and everything," urged Edna, aghast.

"Of course," repeated Cricket, undauntedly. "It's as easy as rolling off a log. That isn't slang, Eunice, and you needn't look at me. Rolling off a log is really very easy indeed." For Eunice, though her own language was not always above reproach, was very apt to play censor to her younger sister. "We'd just make them up ourselves."

"Make them up!" Unimaginative Edna opened her mouth and eyes wider. "I couldn't, to save my life!"

"Oh, you could. I've made up billions of stories," answered Cricket, hugging her knees, and talking earnestly.

"But how?" persisted Edna. "Oh, I couldn't! I wouldn't try!"

"I don't know exactly how," returned Cricket, considering. "Just make them up, that's all. Things come into your head all by themselves, somehow."

"It would be fun, Cricket," put in Eunice, who had been thinking over the project. "We could print the paper all out on foolscap."

"Would we each write our own story out?"

"We could if we wanted to. I thought we might take turns being editor, and printing everything out like a real paper. We might have one every week, and get subscribers," added Cricket, ambitiously.

"Subscribers!" groaned Edna, "and print a copy out for each one? Not if I know myself. It's too warm weather."

"Well, then, we might hand the one around to the subscribers, and each one could pass it to the next, like a Magazine Club," said Edna.

"No," said Eunice. "Don't let us have subscribers, or anything like that. We'll just do it for fun. We'll write one number out for ourselves. I do think it will be fun. Shall we let the boys know?"

"No," said Edna, instantly. "They would tease and spoil things, just as they always do."

"They don't tease much," said Cricket, defensively. "They're a great deal nicer than they were last summer, I think, anyway. They did tease, last summer, dreadfully, and they never played with Eunice and me, but were always with Donald." For the summer before, Will and Archie had spent two months at Kayuna, as grandma had been ill, and was not able to have them at Marbury, as usual.

"This summer I think they're awfully nice. At least Will always is, and Archie is, sometimes. They let me be around with them all the time."

"But I think we'd better not let them into it," said Eunice, judicially. Eunice generally settled all questions. "They would not stick to it, and they would want us to do it some other way from what we wanted,"—speaking from long experience with boys,—"and they would want to have it their own way. Now what shall we call ourselves?"

"We ought to be the 'Echo Club,'" suggested Edna, who often had practical ideas. "We copy it from 'Little Women.'"

"Splendid!" cried Cricket, clapping her hands. "That's just the name, Edna. How clever of you! We'll be the Echo Club, and the paper shall be the 'Echo,' and we'll have badges with 'E. C.' on them, and we'll choose a certain colour ribbon to wear them on, always, and we'll have meetings, and oh, we'll have some by-laws!" her imagination instantly running away with her. "I always wanted to have a club, and have by-laws, and rules, all written out. Do let's begin, right away!"

"We can't very well begin a paper, till we have some stories written to print in it," said Eunice, laughing. "We'll have to get some ideas, first."

"You don't want ideas," answered Cricket, scornfully. "We want to write some stories and things."

"I never can!" sighed Edna, despairingly.

"But you can try," insisted Cricket. "It's so easy." And at last, Edna, with a groan, promised she would at least try.

For the next few days, the three girls were never seen without the accompaniment of blank books and pencils. The blank books were Cricket's idea. She said that they could carry around blank books with them, and write whenever they thought of anything to say. So they tied pencils around their necks, by long ribbons, and scribbled industriously in corners. Edna groaned, and protested, and chewed up her pencil, but Cricket was inexorable, and gave her no peace, till she made a beginning.

Suddenly Cricket discovered that they were not properly organized yet.

"Let's have a meeting at two o'clock this afternoon, and choose a president, and secretary, and treasurer, and an editor, to print the paper when it is done. We must make up our rules and by-laws, too. Oh, we must have a regular business meeting," with an air of much importance.

"Let's have it now, for we're all here," proposed Edna.

"No, indeed, that would not do at all," said Cricket, decidedly, quite disgusted with this suggestion. "We must call the meeting first, just as grown-up people do." For Cricket, with all her harum-scarum ways, had a strong liking for organization.

"You're a fuss," said Edna, laughing, but yielding the point.

So at two o'clock, the three girls duly and solemnly convened behind the rocks, where they were completely screened from observation, both from the house, and from any one passing along the beach. All felt the importance of the occasion, and had preternaturally grave faces.

"What do we do first?" asked Edna, uncertainly.

"I know," said Cricket, quickly. "We nominate some one for president, and somebody seconds the motive. Papa has often told us about it, and once I went with mamma to a club of hers. I'll nominate Eunice for president, and you must second the motive, Edna, and then we'll vote."

"There'll be nobody to vote, but me, then," objected Eunice. "Shall I vote for myself?"

"Might as well. You'll have to be president anyway, because you're the oldest, and it's more appropriate. Or let's do this: You say, 'All in favour say, aye. Contrary-minded, no,' and then we'll all vote. That's the way they did in mamma's meeting, only, of course, there were more to vote. Now, I nominate Eunice Ward as president of the Echo Club."

"I second the motive," said Edna, promptly, trying not to laugh.

"All in favour of my being president, say aye," said Eunice, in her turn.

A very vigorous aye from the two others followed.

"Contrary-minded, say no."

There being nobody to say no, it was considered a unanimous election, and Cricket so declared it, with a slight variation.

"Eunice is a unaminous president," she announced.

"What is a unaminous president," asked Edna.

"I don't know. It's something they always say. Now we must choose a secretary and treasurer."

"What do they do?"

"Why, the secretary writes things," said Cricket, vaguely.

"All the stories?" said Edna, brightening. "I nominate Cricket for secretary."

"Of course not. We each write our own stories. I mean letters and things. Don't you know, Eunice, that Marjorie was secretary to her club last winter, and what a lot of writing she had to do?"

"Who to?" persisted Edna. "What do they have to write letters for? We've nobody to write letters to but Aunt Margaret and the rest."

"Not to them, of course," returned Cricket, somewhat impatiently, as she did not at all know the duties of a secretary. "And the treasurer takes care of the money, of course," she went on, quickly shifting the subject to something she was sure of.

"How are we going to get any money, will you kindly tell me?" pursued Edna.

"Keeping a peanut stand," suggested Eunice, slyly.

"No, don't let's," answered Cricket, seriously. "It isn't really much fun, and you don't make very much, anyway. First, let's take up a collection to buy the paper with, for we've got to have that. And, well, if we should have any money in any way, the treasurer would be all ready to take care of it. Don't you see?"

"Ye-es. I nominate Cricket for secretary and treasurer, then—"

"I'll second the motive—Cricket, that doesn't sound right."

"It is," said Cricket, positively. "When I went to that meeting with mamma, they kept saying that—'I'll second the motive.'"

"All right, then, I'll second the motive, but then Edna will have to be the editor."

"No, no," cried Edna, looking alarmed. "I'll nominate myself for secretary and treasurer, and we'll have Cricket for editor. There won't be any letters to write, and I'm sure there won't be much money to take care of."

"It will be lots of work to be editor," meditated Eunice. "Wouldn't this be better, girls? Let each be editor in turn."

"Yes, that will be best," said Cricket. "I'd just as lief be first editor, though, if Edna doesn't want to."

"And I'd lievser you would," said Edna. "Shall I be secretary and treasurer, then? All in favour say aye;" and Eunice and Cricket said aye, loudly.

"What do we do now the officers are all chosen?" asked Edna.

"Make rules and by-laws," answered Cricket, promptly.

"What are by-laws?" asked Edna, again.

"Why, they are—by-laws. I don't know just exactly what they are," broke off Cricket, honestly. "But I think they sound very interesting and grown-up-y. Do you know what they are, Eunice?"

"N—o, not exactly. Do you suppose they are the laws about buying things? or who must buy them, or anything like that?"

"Why, of course!" exclaimed Cricket, with an air of conviction. "You see then, we'll have to have by-laws to see about buying the paper, won't we?"

"And what sort of rules do we have?" went on Edna, in the pursuit of information.

"Oh, everything! Let's begin to make them now. You write them down, Edna, for your handwriting is so nice and neat. Take the last leaf of your blank book."

Edna obediently opened her book, and took up her pencil.

"Write 'Rules for the Echo Club' at the top of the page," directed Cricket. "Now, Rule One," when this was down in Edna's careful handwriting.

"How would this do for rule one? 'We make ourselves into a club called the Echo Club.'"

"That's good. Now for rule two.

"'Every two weeks we will print a paper called the Echo,'" said Cricket. "Edna, you make up rule three."

"'The secretary shall be excused from writing stories,'" laughed Edna.

"You lazy, lazy thing. That sha'n't be a rule at all," answered Eunice, laughing also.

"How would this do, then, for rule three? 'The Echo Club will not do anything in very hot weather, but sit under the trees and embroider and read, and none of the members shall be allowed to make the others go on long walks and things when it's so roasting hot that nobody wants to stir.' That's a beautiful rule," said Edna, mischievously. Whereupon Cricket flew at her, and rolled her over on the sand, till she cried for mercy.

"Will the meeting please come to order," announced the president. "Let's have the third rule about our ribbons. We'll choose one colour. I vote for pale-green."

"Blue," said Edna, and "Pink," said Cricket, in one breath. The children looked at each other and laughed.

"I'd just as soon have pale-green," said Edna, amiably.

"So would I," agreed Cricket. "Eunice is president, so let's vote for pale-green. How would this do? 'The club will have pale-green ribbon to tie its pencils round its necks.'"

"'Round its necks' sounds funny," commented Edna, writing.

"Round its neck, then. But that sounds as if we had only one neck."

"Say, the club will have pale-green ribbon to tie their pencils round their necks," amended Eunice.

"That will do. Now rule four," said Edna, waiting, with pencil raised.

"Shouldn't we have a by-law now?" asked Cricket. "For instance, By-law one: 'The club will buy foolscap paper to print on, and will take up a surscription of five cents to buy it with.'"

"Subscription," corrected Eunice. "I should think that would do."

So Edna wrote, neatly:

"Buy-law I. The club will take up a subscription of five cents each, and buy foolscap paper, as much as it needs."

"That's good. Do we need any more by-laws? What else have we to buy?"

"Ain't those enough rules?" asked Eunice. "I can't seem to think of any more rules we want to make."

"When will we have the paper?" asked Edna.

"Depends on when you send in your stories. This is Wednesday. Have you your stories nearly done, girls? I guess it will take some time to print them all out carefully."

"I can finish mine to-morrow," said Eunice.

"Mine's a horrid little thing, but I wasn't born bright," sighed Edna. "I'll get it done by Friday. I can't think up more than five lines a day."

"Mine's all done," said Cricket. "But, oh, girls! a newspaper ought to have ever so many more things than stories in it. We ought to have jokes, and advertisements, and deaths, and marriages, and all that. And puzzles, too."

"Oh-h!" groaned Edna. "Then you'll have to make them up, that's all. I think it's the editor's business, anyway."

"We'll each do a few. That won't be hard," suggested Eunice.

"Suppose nobody dies, or gets married, that we know of?" asked literal Edna.

"Make them up, child," answered Cricket, with a funny air of superiority. "In a paper you can make up anything. It doesn't have to be true. Don't you know how often papa says 'that's only a newspaper story?'"

"Making them up is just the trouble," persisted Edna. "If anybody really died, or married, or anything, it would be easy enough to write of it, of course. How silly people are who make real newspapers. Why do they ever make up anything, when real things are happening all the time?"

"It's more fun to make things up," answered Cricket, from the depths of her experience. "But we can write about that old red hen, and about poor little Wallops"—referring to a little black cat, lately deceased. "Then each of you must send me in some things besides your stories, and I'll make some up myself. Let's appoint next Tuesday for a meeting, if I can get the paper done. If I don't, we'll have it as soon as I can get it ready."

"Shall that be a rule?" laughed Eunice.

"No, miss. But suppose we make this a rule—how many rules have we now?"

"Three," said Edna, referring to the constitution.

"Then rule four: 'The paper shall be read on Wednesday afternoons, at three o'clock, in Rocky Nook.' Why, girls! I made up that name just then!" interrupting herself, in her surprise.

"It's a splendid name," the girls said.

"We might call it 'Exiles' Bower,'" laughed Edna, teasingly, for the boys had given that name to Bear Island since the girls' imprisonment there.

"If you like," said Cricket, the unteasable, serenely.

"Don't you think that the next rule ought to be that we won't tell the boys?" asked Edna. "I just know they will tease us out of our senses."

So rule five was duly registered, to the effect that strict secrecy was to be observed, and that they would tell no one but grandma and Auntie Jean.

"There must be another by-law," put in Cricket, reflectively, here, "for we must have some badges, like Marjorie's society."

"What are they?" asked Edna.

"Marjorie took a dime and had the jeweller rub it off smooth, and put some letters on it. We could have E. C. put on ours. Then he put a little pin on it, and she wears it all the time. Don't you suppose auntie would see about them for us?"

"I'm sure she would. She would lend us the money, I guess, and let us make it up from our allowances."

So the next regulation read:

"Buy-law two. We will have badges, made of dimes, with E. C. on them, and will ask mamma to let us have the money for them."

"Doesn't that look club-by?" exclaimed Cricket, enthusiastically, surveying the neatly written page, with its rules and "buy-laws."

"You ought to be the first editor, Edna, for you do write beautifully."

"You write my stories, and I'll print the paper, any time," said Edna, brightening.

"No, I won't. I won't let you wiggle out of writing your stories, Edna, if I print all the papers. Come, girls, I'm nearly dead with sitting still so long," added Cricket, springing up. "Let's go to ride."

"No, I thank you. This is all I want to do, this hot day," answered Edna, stretching herself out on the sand, with her head in Eunice's lap.

"Oh, lazybones! I'm going to find old Billy, and take him to ride. Good-by!"



CHAPTER XI.

"THE ECHO."

"Girls, we forgot one very important thing," said Cricket, suddenly pausing in her work of copying out carefully, in print, on legal cap, the much-interlined and very untidy looking manuscripts that had been handed in. The three girls were sitting cosily in one end of the broad piazza, Edna lying back in a bamboo steamer chair, reading, Eunice in the hammock, while Cricket, at the table, with both feet curled up on the round of her chair, worked industriously.

"What did we forget?" asked Edna, languidly.

"We forgot to choose names for ourselves, as Jo and the rest did. I don't want to sign just plain Edna Somers to your piece."

"I'm sure I don't want you to," said Edna, with sudden energy. "I just hate my name. I wish mamma hadn't named me till I could choose for myself."

"What a good idea!" said Eunice, admiringly. "I never thought of that. What name would you choose?"

"Hildegarde Genevieve," answered Edna, promptly. "Those are my favourite names. And I wish my last name was Montague."

"Hildegarde Genevieve Montague! That's a beautiful name!" exclaimed Cricket. "Have that for your club name, Edna. Now you choose, Eunice."

"Let me see!" considered Eunice. "I think Esmeralda is just splendid, and I love Muriel. Esmeralda Muriel would do."

"And have Le Grand for your last name," begged Cricket. "I think anything with a Le in it is so—so stately. But Muriel is one of my favourite names, too, Eunice. What shall I choose? Do you like Seretta?"

"That isn't a real name, is it," asked Edna.

"I made it up the other night, and I think it's sweet. I'll be Seretta Carlillian. I made that up, too. So that's settled," said Cricket, resuming her work, and signing, "Hildegarde Genevieve Montague," very carefully.

The rest of the family had, of course, noticed the sudden literary bent of these young women, and were all curiosity to know the reason of it. The boys gave them no peace, and though the girls stuck to their secret valiantly, Will and Archie managed to worm it from them at last. To the relief of the girls, however, they did not tease, but, on the contrary, quite approved, and even offered to contribute, an offer which the small editor would not accept unconditionally.

"You may write things," she said, rather dubiously, "and if I like them I'll print them. But I'm not going to put in any nonsense. This is a really-truly paper, and the girls have written beautiful stories."

She was sole judge of the production, however, for the other girls had agreed that it would be more fun if nobody but the editor knew the contents of the paper till it was read. It proved to be a great deal of work to copy all the paper neatly in printing letters, but Cricket stuck to it faithfully. Auntie advised that she should work regularly, one hour in the morning, and one hour in the afternoon, till she got it done, and Cricket, who, at first, felt obliged to work at it all the morning, very willingly followed her suggestion. Auntie had also undertaken to advance the money for the badges, which a little local watchmaker had promised to have done before Wednesday. He kept his promise, and three prouder little girls never walked than these three, when they fastened on these round, shining pins, with "E. C." embroidered on them, as Cricket said.

Would my little readers like a glimpse of this "really-truly" paper of "really-truly" little girls?

Well, then, the club meeting was held, by common consent, on the piazza, instead of in "Rocky Nook," for the boys insisted on being present, and Auntie Jean hinted that an invitation to herself and grandma would be much appreciated.

"You mustn't anybody laugh," said Eunice, finally, in some trepidation.

"We'll be as sober as—crocodiles," promised Will, "and I don't know anything more serious than a crocodile."

So, when the audience was duly assembled on the piazza, the "Echo Club" marched out of the house, headed by President Eunice, the secretary and treasurer following, while the editor, all in a flutter, carrying the precious paper laid flat in an atlas, brought up the rear. The president sat down, gravely, in a big chair reserved for her, while the secretary took a seat by her side, though she cast a longing look at the hammock, which was regarded as undignified. The editor, vainly trying to control her smiles and restrain her dimples, stood behind the table, and began.

"I copied the top part of it from a real newspaper, auntie," she said, opening the sheet. "Now, boys, remember, if you laugh the least bit, I'll stop. And, oh, auntie, I forgot to say that the boys wrote some of the atoms."

"Atoms?" repeated Auntie Jean, puzzled.

"Atoms! Miss Scricket, oh, ho!" called Archie; then, recollecting himself just in time, he clapped his hands over his mouth.

"That's what you said they were, I thought," said Cricket, anxiously. "Don't you know, auntie, those little things that come between the stories, and all that? General atoms. I have written it down."

"Items, dear," said auntie, soberly.

"Items—atoms," repeated Cricket, thoughtfully, comparing the sounds. "Yes, of course. How silly of me. I'll change it right away. Well, the boys wrote most of them, anyway. Now, I'm all ready," and Cricket cleared her throat, and began.

The Echo.

SERELLA CARLILLIAN, Editor.

NO. 1. Marbury, Wednesday, July 15th, 18—. VOL. I.

DELL'S COMPOSITION.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Dell Ripley, "next Friday is Composition Day, and I've got to write a composition. What subject shall I take, mamma?"

"Are there not any subjects in your school composition-book?" asked Mrs. Ripley, a pleasant looking lady of apparently thirty-five.

"Yes'm, but not any I want. Oh, it seems to me that I saw a book up-stairs in the garret with something about compositions in it," and, shaking back her floating curls, the little girl bounded from the room. She ran up the garret stairs, and then began to look for the book. At last she found it, and eagerly opened it, and, as she opened it, a paper fluttered to the floor.

She picked it up, and saw the name "Amy Willard" on it. "Why," she thought, "it's something of Aunt Amy's," and she read it. It was a composition.

"Joan of Arc," cried Dell, "splendid subject, and splendid composition. I wish I could write one as nice."

"Why not take this one?" asked the tempter. Then there was a very long struggle in Dell's heart, but the tempter conquered, and Dell carried the composition down to her own room to copy it. When she had finished it, she read it over, trying to think that it sounded just like any of her own, and that no one would ever know it.

"It sounds just like mine," she said, trying to get rid of that uneasy feeling. "I guess I'll just change this sentence and that one."

"Have you written your composition, dear?" asked Mrs. Ripley, pleasantly, as Dell came slowly down-stairs, and out on the piazza.

"Yes'm," answered Dell, very low.

"You look tired, dear."

"I am."

"What shall I do if I am found out?" thought Dell.

When she went to bed that night she was very unhappy. Her conscience troubled her very much. She wished she had never found the composition, and almost made up her mind to confess, but, alas, only almost.

She turned and tossed till nearly ten o'clock, and then fell asleep, and dreamed that, just as she was reading the composition before the school, her Aunt Amy appeared, and claimed it as her own, thus showing her niece's wickedness. She awoke with a scream that brought her mother to her bedside. Dell's first thought was to tell her mother all, and, without waiting a moment, she confessed her sin.

After that, Dell's compositions were her own.

ESMERALDA MURIEL LE GRAND.

* * * * *

POLLY'S NECKLACE.

"Oh, mamma," exclaimed little Polly More. "To-morrow is my birthday, and what are you going to give me for a present?"

"What do you want?" asked Mrs. More.

"I should like a necklace of some sort. Oh, papa," bounding toward her father, "are you going to give me something?"

"What would you like me to give you?"

"Oh, anything," said Polly.

So the next morning, Polly found by her bedside, when she woke up, a pretty little coral necklace, and a red purse with seventy-five cents in it, and a penknife.

Three or four weeks after, Polly went to visit her uncle, who lived in the country. He was a farmer, and it was haying time, and he was getting in the new hay, and Polly liked to play in the hay with her cousin May. One day, as they were playing there, her coral necklace came unclasped and fell into the hay. She hunted a long time, but could not find it.

Polly went home the next week sorrowing, but the next spring, when the cows had eaten up all the hay, the news came that May had found the necklace, and Polly was happy again.

HILDEGARDE GENEVIEVE MONTAGUE.

* * * * *

POETRY.

TO MY MOTHER.

(A Lament.)

Oh, mother dear, why hast thou gone, And left thy Cricket all alone? The tears flow often from my eye, And oft, indeed, I almost cry.

Should danger chance to come to thee, While thou are sailing on the sea, With sorrow would our hearts be torn, And we would be here all forlorn.

Perhaps thou may fall from the deck, Before papa thy fall could check, Perhaps they could not rescue thee, And then, alas! what grief to me.

Of course papa might pull thee out, Or else some burly sailor, stout. Oh, dear mamma! I pray thee, strive To keep thyself, for us alive!

And dear papa, we miss him, too, Almost as much as we do you. We long to see his dear old face, And fold him in our close embrace.

And Marjorie and Donald, too, We miss you all, but mostly you. Oh, hurry and grow very strong, That we may have you back ere long.

SERETTA CARLILLIAN.

* * * * *

Miss Zaidee and Miss Helen Ward have decided that they will patronize the ocean hereafter for their daily bath, rather than the tanks in the cheese factory.

* * * * *

A SAD ACCIDENT.

The other day our editor, and one of the valuable contributors to this paper, were seated on two posts, playing the manly game of bean-bag. The bag was coming to the editor, but somehow, when he grabbed for it, it fell on the ground. Our editor immediately sprang after it, but, in doing so, his dress caught on the post, and he hung up there. He was rescued by Miss Le G. He is now doing well.

* * * * *

POOR PATTY.

Little Patty looked very poor indeed. She sat on a rough stone that was used as a door-step, with her head resting on her hand. Her beautiful golden curls fell way below her waist, over her white neck and shoulders, which her ragged dress did not hide.

Patty had been stolen by gypsies three years before, when she was seven years old. She was very pretty, and because of that the gypsies had stolen her to sell. One night she ran away from the gypsies, and during the day she wandered on till she came to a large town. When it was night again, she was tired and hungry, and she sat down on a door-step and fell fast asleep, and here she was found by Mrs. Bruce, who took her home, thinking she could make her useful in running errands.

So Patty was sitting on the door-step when a rough voice called from inside the house, "Be off with you, you lazy thing! Didn't I tell you an hour ago to be off for the milk? Be off with you, I say."

Poor Patty got off rather slowly, for she didn't feel well, and ran down the street and didn't stop till she got to the store. But coming home she didn't run so fast, for her head ached, and when she got home Nan Bruce scolded her. In a few minutes Patty went up-stairs to her poor garret, where she slept, and threw herself upon the bed, and cried herself to sleep. When she woke up she had a high fever, and in a short time she was delirious. Nan was much alarmed, and sent for the doctor, who said she had scarlet fever, and he got a good nurse for her. For three months no one expected she would recover, but after that she began to get well.

One morning, when she was nearly well, she said suddenly to the doctor, "Doctor, it seems to me as if I had seen you before."

"You have, I guess," said the doctor, laughing. "I have been here every day for three months."

"I don't mean that," said Patty, "but I feel as if I had seen you before those people took me off."

"How old were you when they took you off?" asked the doctor, who knew she had been stolen.

"I think I was seven, for it was on the very day after my birthday, I remember."

"Why, I had a little girl that was stolen the very day after she was seven years old," said the doctor. "She was carried off by gypsies."

"Why, the gypsies were the very people that carried me off, too."

"Patty, would you like to go and live with me?" asked the doctor.

"Oh, yes, I would. Perhaps I am your little girl, for I am not hers."

"Perhaps so. I will see if I can find out about it." The doctor asked Nan Bruce, and she told him all she knew. He then made arrangements to take Patty home with him, for he knew now she was his own little girl. So Patty went to live with the doctor, and she had lovely dresses of porcelain to wear, and a servant to stand in statu quo behind her chair at dinner.

SERETTA CARLILLIAN.

* * * * *

MARRIAGES.

Hopvine—Woodbine. On the 21st, Mr. Hopvine, to Miss Woodbine, both of Marbury. No cards.

DEATHS.

On the first of June, little Robin, only child of Mr. and Mrs. Redbreast, aged two months, four days, and three hours.

Little Robin, thou hast left us, We shall hear thy chirp no more; Very lonely hast thou left us, And our hearts are very sore.

On the 7th of June, two little kittens, in the barn of Mrs. Maxwell. We grieve greatly at recording the deaths of these loving and lovely twins, so sad and unexpected. They had a large circle of admirers and friends, who feel greatly overcome that these beautiful young twins are called away.

* * * * *

Also, Wallops, older brother of the above, departed this life on June 10th. He was found dead on the seashore.

Poor little Wallops, Died of eating scallops. (He really ate crabs, but crabs wouldn't rhyme.) We'll see him frisk no more, For we found him on the shore, All stiff and cold, expiring in his prime.

* * * * *

TOWN TOPICS.

Miss Cricket Ward has decided to sell out her peanut stand at cost.

Mr. Will and Archie Somers have cleaned the Gentle Jane, and they are now prepared to take out parties at reasonable rates. Come early and often.

Mr. Kenneth Ward has nearly recovered from a serious wound he received when he was eloping with his aunt's watch. The path of the transgressor is hard. It was the stones in this case.

Miss Hilda Mason, of East Wellsboro', is expected soon to spend a week with her friend, the editor.

* * * * *

WIT AND HUMOUR.

["None of the wits are original, auntie," put in Cricket, here. "The boys sent some of them in, and they said they were, but I don't believe them, and I copied mine, anyway."]

How to get along in the world. Walk.

A little girl visiting the country for the first time, saw a man milking. After looking a few minutes, she asked, "Where do they put it in?"

When is a man thinner than a shingle? When he's a-shaving.

What was the first carriage Washington ever rode in? When he took a hack at the little cherry-tree.

What did Lot do when his wife became a pillar of salt? He got a fresh one.

"Mike," asked a man, addressing a bow-legged friend, "are them legs of yourn natural or artificial?" "Artificial, me lad. I went up in a balloon, and walked back."

* * * * *

GENERAL ITEMS.

Letters were received from Dr. Ward and family, that they are enjoying themselves in the Swiss mountains. Mamma is better. She says they have such funny little boys there.

Mr. Billy Ruggles is going to have a new shiny hat. Kenneth sat down on his other one, and it got all flattened out, and it looks like fury, and grandma says he can't wear it any more.

Bridget has a new dishpan.

Luke says he has forty-eight chickens.

Maggie Sampson's little donkey can't go nearly as fast as Mopsie and Charcoal Ward.

Mr. Simon has his summer stock of fresh red and white peppermints in. He won't have any chocolates till August, because he bought such a large stock in May.

There is to be a church sociable in the Methodist church. I wish auntie would condescend to let us go, for we haven't ever been to a Methodist sociable. I never went to any kind of a sociable.

Miss Hildegarde Genevieve Montague wishes to say that, if she was a boy, she doesn't think it would be any fun to cut up pieces of whalebones, and put them under the sheet in his sister's bed.

There will be a special and very private meeting of the E. C. in some very secret place, to decide whether we will let the boys be honorary members or not. If they are elected honorary members, we will turn them out any time that they don't behave themselves very well indeed.

* * * * * * * * * FAME. * * * * * * * * *

THE END—FINIS.

The tail-piece was Cricket's ambitious flight of fancy. She drew a long breath and sat down, amid vigorous applause.

"That's very creditable, my little authorlings," said auntie, encouragingly. "Cricket, you did more than your share, I think, if you copied all that, and wrote a story and a poem beside."

"I had them all thought before, auntie. I made up the poetry the day I was caught on the mud-flat. I love to think out stories."

"Oh-h!" groaned Edna. "How any one can think out stories just for fun, I don't see. I'd almost rather fight skeeters. Mine's the stupidest story that ever was, but I don't believe I slept a wink for three nights, while I was making it up. You don't catch me writing any stories, girls, when I am editor."

"I am afraid you weren't intended for an author, my dear," said her mother, laughing.

"Somebody must read the stories," said Edna, defensively.



CHAPTER XII.

THE HAIRS OF HIS HEAD.

The Maxwell family were coming home from church along the sandy, sunny road. Eunice and Edna, arm in arm, were ahead, laughing and talking over some profound secret. Will and Archie mimicked them behind, while grandmamma and Auntie Jean, under a generous black sun-umbrella, strolled slowly along some distance in the rear. Cricket, in the misery of a dainty organdie, which she must keep clean for another Sunday, and with the unhappy consciousness of her Sunday hat of wide, white Leghorn, which, with its weight of pink roses, flopped uncomfortably about her ears, walked along by herself, in an unusually meditative frame of mind. She refused, with dignity, the boys' proposal to walk with them, and told the girls it was too hot to go three abreast.

Presently, down a cross street, she spied a familiar figure, tall and bent, with a head of bristling hair, and a high silk hat,—it was Billy, and she instantly ran to meet him. Billy could never be induced to attend the little Episcopal chapel where Mrs. Maxwell went, but "favoured his own meetin'-'us," he said, which was the little white Unitarian church by the post-office.

"Folks didn't set easy in Mrs. Maxwell's church," he often said, "and he didn't like to see a minister in a white petticoat, with a black ribbund around his neck." It didn't seem respectful to him to have so much to do with the service. But Billy was very devout in his own way, and never missed service nor Wednesday evening prayer-meeting in his own church.

"H'lo, Billy!" cried Cricket, beaming. "Don't you want to carry my prayer-book? I want to get those wild roses."

Billy was only too delighted.

"Had a good sermon?" pursued Cricket, in very grown-up fashion, as they walked along, side by side, after the roses were secured.

"Oh, very decent, very decent," answered Billy, who always nodded from the text to "Finally."

"What was it about?" went on Cricket, feeling that she must give a Sunday tone to the conversation.

Billy took off his hat and scratched his head, to assist his ideas.

"'Bout—'bout very good things," he said, vaguely. "We sang a pretty hymn, too."

"Did you? What was it?"

"That hymn about 'Hand Around the Wash-rag.' I've heard you a-singin' it."

"Hand around the wash-rag! Why Billy Ruggles, what can you mean?"

"Yes," insisted Billy, who had a good ear for music in his poor, cracked head. "You was singin' it las' night."

"I can't imagine what you mean, Billy. When we were on the piazza, do you mean? We didn't sing anything about wash-rags, I'm sure. We didn't sing but three things, anyway, because grandma had a headache."

"It was the first thing you sang," persisted Billy.

"Oh—h! 'Rally Round the Watchword,'" and Cricket, regardless of her Sunday finery, sat down on a stone to laugh. "You funny Billy!"

Billy grinned, though he did not see the joke.

"That's as bad as what Helen insisted they sang last Christmas, in the infant class, something about 'Christmas soda's on the breeze!' I don't know what she means," said Cricket, forgetting that Billy would not understand. It was such a relief when any one else, even old Billy, mispronounced words, and thus gave her a chance to laugh at them. It was her heedlessness that made her make so many mistakes, for her quick eyes flashed along the page, taking in the meaning and general form of the words, without grasping the exact spelling.

"Hope you heard a good sermon," said Billy, making conversation in his turn.

"Oh, yes, very. I listened to almost all of it. Mr. Clark said something about something being as many as the hairs of your head, and there was a bald-headed man who sat right in front of us, and he only had the teentiest bit of hair, just like a little lambrequin around his head. So I thought I could easily count his hairs, because they were so straight and so long, and so few of them, anyway. And, Billy, do you know, I got so interested that I began to count right out loud once, and I stood up, right there in church, Billy, while the minister was preaching, to see round his head better, and Eunice pulled me down. I was so ashamed."

Billy looked so shocked that Cricket hastened to add:

"There weren't very many people who saw me, though, for we sat pretty far back. I did listen to the sermon after that, though. I had only counted up to two hundred. I just wonder how many hairs a person has on his head, anyway. I mean a person with the regular amount."

"Three hundred?" hazarded Billy, hazily.

"No, indeed; more than that. Many as a thousand, I guess. Oh, Billy, you have a splendid lot of hair! S'pose I count it this afternoon?"

Billy chuckled assent.

"Let's go out in the orchard, back of the beach. It's all quiet and shady there. The girls will be down by the rocks, and the boys are going for a long walk. So there will be nobody to interrupt us. It will take most all the afternoon, I guess, but I've always wanted to know how many hairs grow on a person's head. I'll come for you after dinner, Billy, don't forget!" and, having arrived at the house, Cricket skipped up the porch steps, and went up-stairs to relieve herself of the bondage of her pink organdie as soon as possible.

After dinner, Cricket found her willing slave waiting for her on the piazza.

"Let's go right off before the others come out, for we don't want a whole raft of children after us," she said, and so they went around the house, through the side gate, into the orchard.

"Here's a lovely, shady spot. You sit right down on this hummock, Billy," ordered Cricket. "Your hair is just fine for counting," she went on, taking off Billy's shining beaver.

Billy looked much flattered. He certainly did have a good crop for the purpose. His hair was rather coarse, very wiry and bristling, about two inches long, and as clean as a daily scrubbing in soap and water could make it.

"Now, where shall I begin? You see you haven't any part, Billy, and there's no place to start from."

"Seem's if my hair wouldn't stay parted," said Billy, meekly, looking troubled by the fact.

"I'll part it right in the middle, and you put your hand up and hold this side down, while I count the other. I'll begin right in front. One—two—three—there, Billy, you moved your hand a little, and some of your hair slipped right up again, and I've lost my place."

"I didn't go to do it," said Billy, pressing his hand down harder on the rebellious hairs. "Is that all right now?"

"Yes, that will do. Now, hold still," and Cricket began again.

"Ninety-nine—one hundred—oh, Billy!" for an inquiring wasp came whizzing near, and Billy ducked suddenly to avoid it. "Now I've lost that, and I've got to begin again. Billy, you haven't any string in your pocket, have you? Then I could tie up your hair in bunches when I get to one hundred, and count the bunches afterward."

But Billy hadn't a string.

"I'll run up to the house and get some," said Cricket, darting away. She was back in a few minutes, with a small pasteboard box in her hand.

"This is better than string," she panted. "I got auntie's little box of rubber bands. Now we can count. Never mind holding your hand up, for I can begin anywhere."

She gathered up a lock of hair, counted to one hundred, and twisted an elastic band around it, close to the roots.

"That's one hundred. Now, for the next," she said, with much satisfaction. She counted on, industriously, and soon poor Billy's head bristled with queer-looking little bunches on one side. She was much too engrossed to notice the effect at first.

Some time later, grandmamma and Auntie Jean, strolling leisurely through the orchard, saw ahead of them a funny sight: Billy, sitting meekly on a hummock, his hands on his black broadcloth knees, while Cricket stood behind him, bending over his head, all over the top of which bristled plumy bunches of white hair, which stood up rampantly.

"What in the world is that child doing, making Billy look like a porcupine?" exclaimed grandma, standing still in amazement, unseen by the two.

"Playing Horned Lady, I should think. But I dare say she has purpose in her mind. Listen. Why, mother! she's actually counting Billy's hair!"

At this moment, Cricket, pausing to snap another elastic band around the last bunch, for the first time noticed the effect of her hair dressing.

"Oh, Billy! if you don't look just as if you had a lot of little feather dusters growing on your head!" she cried, holding on to her sides as she laughed.

Billy looked disturbed. He decidedly objected to being laughed at. He put up his hand to feel.

"Don't take them down," said Cricket, pushing his hand away. "I'm going on. My! what a lot of hair people have. Let's see how many bunches I have. Twenty-two—twenty-three. That makes twenty-three hundred, and there's lots more to do, yet. I don't wonder people mean so much when they say, as many as the hairs of your head, do you?"

"How many, Cricket?" asked auntie, laughing, as she and grandma drew nearer.

"Who's that? Oh, auntie!" Cricket looked a little abashed. "I'm only counting Billy's hair," she explained. "Mr. Clark said this morning that, if we counted our mercies, we should find them as many as the hairs of our heads."

"It might be easier to count the mercies," said auntie, still laughing.

"Yes, I thought of that coming home from church," said Cricket, going on with her work of gathering up wisps of Billy's hair into plumes, and fastening them by the bands, though without counting. "Then I didn't know exactly what my mercies are, excepting that 'Liza says it is a mercy I'm not twins."

"What had you been doing when she said that, Jean?" immediately asked grandma, who never used her nickname.

"Nothing, much," said Cricket, "only 'Liza gets cranky sometimes, you know."

"That won't do, Cricket," said Auntie Jean, scenting mischief. "Tell me what you did."

"Really, it wasn't much. It was this morning, and 'Liza had Helen in the bath-tub bathing her, and I went into the nursery a moment, and Zaidee was in bed, and she said her leg hurt her, and 'Liza was going to rub it with 'Pond's Extrap,'—that's what she calls Pond's Extract, you know," taking breath,—"and I only meant to help 'Liza, really and truly. So I took down the bottle and began to rub Zaidee's legs. I thought the Pond's Extract seemed to have gotten dreadfully sticky, and it was all thick and dark like molasses, and I could hardly rub at all with it, and Zaidee said she didn't like it, and she cried. But I thought it was the best thing to do for her, so I told her a story to keep her quiet, till I got both her legs all rubbed. Then 'Liza came in, and wanted to know what made Zaidee's legs so sticky, and the sheets and her nightdress were pretty bad, because she wiggled so that I spilled some. 'Liza just snatched the bottle away, very unpolitely, when I only told her that I had been helping her because she was so busy, and Zaidee wanted her legs rubbed. 'It's Kemp's Balsam,' she said, 'and I'm giving it to Helen for her cough, and it's not Pond's Extract, at all.' But it was a Pond's Extract bottle, auntie, truly, so how should I know? And then she said, 'it was a mercy I wasn't twins,'" finished Cricket, looking much aggrieved.