"Do you know, Mr. Badger, who shut and nailed that window?"

"Aunt Stanshy herself. I saw her with my own eyes."

"You did?"

"Yes. You see—there, I don't know but I'm telling a secret—but then you won't say any thing."

Having made this prudent remark, and not waiting for any promise from Charlie, Simes, who dearly loved to tell a thing, and especially any thing that might astonish a hearer, began his story.

"You see, Tim Tyler is your Aunt Stanshy's second cousin."

"Tim's father?" said Charlie, in astonishment.

"You mean young Tim Tyler's father? Ginerally old Tim is young Tim's father, sartin as the sea is father of our river. But this old Tim is young Tim's uncle. Then you didn't know it? Well, you are young, and I spose nobody told you. Well, Stanshy and old Tim were brought up side by side in this neighborhood and were good as chickens to one another. Some folks say they'd been better friends still, if their parents hadn't set their faces agin it, and so they were never married to one another. They were never married at all. Did you ever see old Tim?"

"I don't know as ever I saw old Tim, but then I've seen that boy, and he is rough," said Charlie, recalling the afternoon of the Fourth.

"Tim Tyler don't live in this part of the town, and it's no wonder you never saw him. He hardly ever comes down this way now, though he often did once. Well, the wust lookin' old drunkard you ever see about town, spot him for Tim."

"Then I guess I have seen him," remarked Charlie, recalling the drunkard he had watched the afternoon of his severe sickness, and remembering, too, Aunt Stanshy's singular conduct.

"Tim looks poorly enough now, but it wasn't so once. Straight and smart, and bright as the blades of a new jack-knife, was Tim. His face was blushin' like a posy, and his beard was long and handsome, like Moses the prophet's. He was nice as a pictur till rum got the better of him, and then he changed, I tell ye. For many years he had the privilege of fishin' from this barn. From the stairs on the 'tother side of that door, he would get down into his fishin' boat in the dock. He would bring his fish in here, split 'em and prepare 'em for market. Sometimes Stanshy kept a horse and cow below, and then Tim would hist his fare into the upper window and clean his fish there. But one day Aunt Stanshy cleaned him out, and when Stanshy starts on a cleanin' tour, she makes thorough work of it, and puts things through promptly. And she did clean out old Tim! But I must go back and hitch the horse into the cart, and say what you know as well as I, that your Aunt Stanshy is a great teetotaler, a leetle too much I think." [Simes liked his nip.] "But seein' how her minister's in favor of it, she is wuss than ever. Now to go on. Your father, boy, let me say, had a hand in this trouble, though not meaningly, and it was this way. Tour father came to live with your Aunt Stanshy, and one day Tim took him out a-fishin', and not only tipped a jug to his own lips, but sot it to your father's also. When they came back home, it was plain they had been up to suthin' besides fishin'. Well, Tim might as well have touched a lion's whip—what do you call it?"

"Whelp. I was reading about lions to-day."

"Yes, touched a lion's whelp as touched your father; for didn't Aunt Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin' fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn't she walk into Tim! I never see an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin' a poor, motherless boy, as she called your father. 'Don't!' your father would go, tryin' to pacify her; 'don't!' It had no more effect than tryin' to fan out of the way a tornader. Indeed, jest because she and Tim had been on good terms with one another and understood one another so well, I think for that reason she was all the hotter. You know when brothers do quarrel, they go it wuss than other folks. Well, Tim at fust would say nothing but he was orful mad. He was that kind of mad that you see in the sky when a thunder-storm is brewin', and yet no rain has fallen; only the flash is there, and the thunder is there a-rumblin', and the lightnin' is there a sawin' up and down, but nary a drop of rain! At last Tim spoke, and he declared it was the last he'd ever have to do with her, and afore he'd ask a favor of her, he took a horrid oath, he'd see hisself a-drownin' in that dock fust. I hated to hear him swear that way, for, sez I, 'Young man, you may get there yet, and you may be glad to have Stanshy's help.' Then he took a barrel of fish he was fillin', and he was so mad he rolled the whole mess into the water, sayin' he would have nothin' to do with any thing that had touched Aunt Stanshy's barn. I asked him why he didn't then throw himself over! That touched him up, and he grabbed his knives and pitched them into the dock. It was a queer sight to see them fish in that barrel floatin' away. But then the rum was in him and maddened him. When he had left, it was Aunt Stanshy's turn to do suthin'. I heard it all, for I was in the yard doin' a few chores for Stanshy. Fust, there was a slam in the barn chamber. I jest slipped up them stairs and peeked over the edge of the floor. Stanshy had pulled the shutter in with a vengeance. Then she hooked it and drove the nails over the hook as tight as bricks. O she is a woman of 'mazin' vigor, Stanshy is, when she gets agoin'. She came down stairs and she fastened up this door, and then I seed her fumblin' in her pocket, and, pullin' out a piece of chalk, she began to write. When Stanshy had finished, of course, I was at my chores agin very busily engaged. Well, since that day, there has been silence between Stanshy and Tim like that round the old tombstones in the church-yard. I hope some day it will be different."

With this benevolent wish, Simes closed.

"A bad scrape," remarked Charlie.

"Yes, people ought not to drink so much," said the abstemious and ascetic Simes. "They ought to stop this side of a drop too much."

"They ought to stop this side of any drop at all," stoutly affirmed the young member of Mr. Walton's temperance society.

"Pre—pre—haps so," replied Simes.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE ENTERTAINMENT.

Aunt Stanshy, as she looked down upon the sitting-room table, saw Charlie's curly head bending over pen, ink, and card-board. He had cut the card-board into strips three inches long and two inches wide.

"What have you there?"

Charlie was too much occupied to notice this remark.

"What are you doing?"

"Making tickets."

"Tickets?"

"Yes, will you buy one?"

"I want to see first what I am going to buy."

"You may."

Aunt Stanshy then read these lines on a slip of card-board:

- Ticket to the Up-the-Ladder Boys' ENTERTAINMENT. Admission, 2 nails. Seat, 10 nails. Elders' admission, 1 cent. Seat, 2 cents. -

"O, that is it I Could I go in for nails, or a cent?"

"For a cent."

"Then I'm an 'elder.'"

"Yes, aunty."

"Well, I'll engage a seat."

"Goody! That will be two cents. We did think of breaking up the club, but this will cheer them up. Wouldn't it be too bad to give up? Our new silk badges that our teacher promised, we have this week."

"The shields?"

"Yes, spick and span new."

"I hope my two cents will encourage them to be good knights."

"O it will. You will be on hand this afternoon, after school?"

"Certainly."

After school, Aunt Stanshy was on hand promptly, and she judged by the noises issuing from the barn that all the others were on hand also. She climbed the, stairs and was about stepping into the chamber, when Pip, the assistant sentinel, came forward. He looked very formidable. A scarlet cap was on his head, a white belt tied round his body, and red flannel epaulets decorated his shoulders. He bore a terrible broom, and Aunt Stanshy recalled the fact that it had served as mast for the Neponset.

"Who goeth there?" cried the valorous Pip.

"Aunt Stanshy," said a feeble voice.

"Advanth and give the counterthign?"

"I can't."

Pip leveled his broom at once. Poor Stanshy, how she wished she had made her will.

"Bang!" he shouted.

Could she survive this?

"Thay pertatoeth!" he whispered.

"Pertatoes," she fortunately shrieked.

"All right," said Pip, and she was spared a second shot.

"I'm thankful to get through safe, and now I have not to pay, after all that risk?"

"Certainly, madam," politely replied Charlie, the treasurer, who now met her. "I'll take your ticket and punch it."

Having punched her ticket, he retired. Aunt Stanshy looked about the chamber. She noticed that an old thin sheet served for curtain, as before, and another was strung across a corner and separated it from the rest of the chamber. This second curtain not being long enough to reach the desired distance, was pieced out by a strip of wire netting in one corner. Looking over this corner curtain, Aunt Stanshy saw eight pieces of carpeting on the floor, each member of the club having furnished a piece. Inside this sanctuary were a barrel and a saw-horse.

"What is this for?" asked Aunt Stanshy.

"O for meetings," said Charlie. "Only the four principals can go in there."

"Who are they?"

"The president, the governor, the first treasury, and the keeper of the great seal. We stand on the barrel and saw-horse, and make laws to the other members of the club, who stand outside."

Aunt Stanshy now turned to inspect the other parts of the chamber.

"This is our whipping-post," said Charlie, calling attention to a post against which leaned the ladder that sloped up to the cupola.

"Have you whipped any one?"

"Yes; Pip deserted once."

Aunt Stanshy read three notices nailed to the post: "First, no cross words; no swearing and vulgar words; nobody but the treasurer to climb this ladder to go up into the cupola, unless the club say so."

This was in Charlie's handwriting.

"Why not go?" asked Aunt Stanshy.

"O we keep our funds up there in a dipper."

"It looks unsafe to me, for somebody climbing up there might reach into the cup and steal the money."

"O no, I guess not."

Sid Waters now stepped forward. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "two more individuals having arrived"—these were nail patrons—"we will begin our entertainment. First is the dialogue called 'The Spy.'"

The curtain rose and there stood the inheritor of the warlike name of Jugurtha. He was rather sober and melancholy, and was dressed in a semi-military style that betrayed not in the least the fact to what flag he might possibly be attached. Sid was crouching down, hiding behind a barrel.

"What am I?" Juggie now asked in low tones, "American or British?"

"Of course," Sid was heard to say, "you are an American, or ought to be. Hush up!"

Juggie now strode over the floor, an exiled broom-handle resting on his shoulder. Suddenly a step was heard. From the rear of a box crept out the governor. He wore a farmer's dress, and was half smothered under his father's tall hat.

"Advance!" shouted Juggie, "and gib de count—count—"

"Countersign!" whispered the prompter behind the barrel.

"Count-de-sign!" shouted Juggie, pompously, at the same time presenting the broom-handle threateningly.

"George Washington!" answered the farmer.

"All right. Go 'long dar!"

"No, no!" whispered Sid. "Let me see your papers, friend!"

"Let me see your papers, friend!"

The farmer reads his pass.

"Is dat all?"

"All."

"Knock off his hat," whispered Sid.

"What's de matter wid your hat?" and as Juggie shouted this, he fetched the governor's hat a merciless rap, one that would have been serious had not the governors head luckily been in the first story of the hat. As the hat dropped, Juggie seized a paper that fell out, and exclaimed, "A spy, a spy! A note to de British commander!"

"Seize him! That is the next thing," suggested Sid, in smothered tones. But the British spy was too much for Juggie, and the defender of the continental name was obliged to resort to severe measures. Presenting the broom-handle, he shouted, "Aim! Fire! Bang!" but the spy was not considerate enough to fall.

"Drop! drop, why don't you?" whispered Juggie. "You've been shot."

The spy, alias the governor, showed his usual firmness, and continued to stand.

"Drop!" besought Sid, in a suppressed voice. "Shoot him again, Juggie!"

But the spy did not care to be riddled again and he prudently fell.

"Drag him out, Juggie!" was the prompting of an unknown voice. Juggie seized one of the spy's fat legs, but pulled in vain. It was an impossible feet. Sid and Charlie now appeared as continentals, supposed to be armed with guns, and were helping Juggie, when the cry was raised, "The British army is coming!" At the head of the stairs appeared Wort Wentworth, his head decorated with a red paper helmet, and carrying on his body various insignia of war. He now made a fierce charge across the floor.

"Into the fort!" shouted Sid, rushing toward the closet, and, as usual, striving after the first chance to retreat. "Into the fort, my men!"

After him scrambled Charlie and Juggie, the dead "spy" manifesting an unusual energy and scrambling after them, forgetting that his friends were in his rear and not in the closet. The next moment all heard an ominous descent from the second to the first story.

"Massy!" shouted Aunt Stanshy. "Somebody has gone down that fodder-box agin!"

She rushed down stairs, followed by the "British army," and all the members of the Up-the Ladder Club that could move one leg before the other.

"I know those legs! I guess they will stand it," said Aunt Stanshy, as she reached the lower floor and caught a glimpse of the fodder-box. It was the British spy, whose stout pedestals were sticking out, and he only needed to be once more seized and dragged forward by Juggie and the other "continentals" to give proof of his vigorous, embalmed condition.

"Sakes, boy!" said Aunt Stanshy. "I thought you were shot, but you manifest an immense amount of vitality for a dead man."

"I came down rather sudden," said the governor.

"Yes, and it's the last time," exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, "that thing is going to happen. I will go up myself and fix that floor, and do it thoroughly."

In a few moments her hammer was heard vigorously pounding in the closet and securing the club against future harm.

"We didn't do all we intended," said Charlie. "We were going to have a reconciliation, aunty."

"Between whom?"

"The British and Americans. We were going to have the President of the United States and Queen Victoria walk arm in arm up and down the floor, and never have war any more."

In the confusion attendant upon the fall of the "spy," the programme was not carried out as planned, and the shadows of those two eminent rulers never darkened the floor of the barn chamber.

"May war never happen, just the same!" said Aunt Stanshy.

Amen! so say we all of us.



CHAPTER IX.

THE CUPOLA.

Aunt Stanshy was reading one day the list of prohibitions posted up against the post in the barn chamber.

"Charlie," she said "I like what is said here, that no cross words and no bad words must be spoken here; but what does it mean when it says no one but the 'treasury' must climb the ladder and go up into the cupola? Does that apply to honorary members? and did you think that I might want to go there?"

Charlie's mouth opened into a crack from ear to ear. "Why—why, the money is up in the cupola!"

"The money is up there in the cupola? Yes, I knew that; you told me that before. What holds your money?"

"A tin dipper."

"Well, now, if you don't look out, somebody will steal your money. You may be assured that honorary members won't trouble it."

"Ho!" shouted Charlie. "There goes a man and a hand organ and a monkey."

The dignity of the club was not sufficient to restrain Charlie and several others from an almost headlong rush for the out-door attraction, and they quickly surrounded the organ-grinder. He owned a remarkable monkey, the boys thought, especially when he mounted by a spout to the window of Aunt Stanshy's chamber, and, entering it, soon re-appeared shaking in his hand Aunt Stanshy's spectacles!

"Put 'em on!" cried Sid.

"He can, he can!" said his master. "Me taught him."

The next moment the spectacles appeared on the monkey's nose!

"He look like her," said the organ-grinder.

But the monkey did not have time to continue his resemblance to the fair owner any longer, for the shadow of a broom fell over him, and if he had not made a very nimble spring for the spout, something besides a shadow would have fallen upon him, even the broom itself. This was now seen at the window, and Aunt Stanshy behind it. It was Tony who gallantly ran forward and rescued Aunt Stanshy's spectacles as their wearer was about quitting the spout for the ground.

"We think that monkey is very smart, Aunt Stanshy," said Sid.

"I expect you will make him an honorary member the next thing."

"He's bright enough," said Sid.

"I wonder how bright one must be to be an honorary member if—if—a monkey is the standard?" thought Aunt Stanshy.

This visit from the monkey was not the only unusual thing happening that day. The club heard with sorrow of the unexpected and total loss of their money! Charlie, as "treasury," had gone up the ladder, but returning, he reported that the dipper, the safe of the club, was missing.

"How much money was in it?" inquired Aunt Stanshy.

"Ten cents."

"I said you might lose your money."

This was entirely true, but it was poor consolation. Indeed, it was quite aggravating.

"Did you have any mark on the dipper?"

"Yes; a shield on the bottom, though—though—'twas not a very good one."

No, to that day it remained uncertain what the device really was, and its character had been hotly discussed in the club.

Charlie had discovered the theft on his return from school at noon. Swallowing a potato and a few mouthfuls of steak, he then rushed from the house to report the loss to the club. In a short time all the white shields had heard the news, and quickly gathered.

"Well, boys, what is to be done?" asked the president.

Nobody knew.

"Let's climb the ladder and all take a look," suggested the secretary.

Exceedingly nimble were the legs that went wriggling up the ladder, and very curious eyes were directed toward the depths of the "cupelo," but the only result was a succession of "My!" and "That's so!" and "Too bad!"

"I've got it!" shouted Sid.

"He'th found it," said Pip.

Every sad face brightened.

"No, I haven't, Pip!" exclaimed Sid.

"But you thaid tho."

"No, I meant that I knew what had become of it."

"O! O!" said Pip. "But what hath become of it?"

Sid here looked about him, to make sure that no one outside of the club was listening.

"Well, boys, I think Tim Tyler took it"

"What makes-you think so?" inquired the governor.

"It has just come to me that I saw Tim Tyler go down the lane after school, and a tin dipper stuck out of his pocket."

"You did?" asked several.

All eyes opened wide in wonder and indignation.

"With my eyes I saw him. That's where the dipper has gone."

It did not occur to the club that there were more dippers than one in the world, and then they did not care to think of it. They had not forgotten the Fourth, and they wanted to believe something bad of Tim.

Another point for discussion came up at once, and Charlie suggested it.

"How shall we get the dipper away from Tim?" he asked.

"I move the president go," said Wort.

"I thecond the mothion," cried Pip.

"Aint you good," was Sid's scornful notice of the intended honor. "Presidents don't do that, but the police of the club. I preside."

"The sentinel is the police, and that is Juggie, but he is not here now; he went home a moment ago. Then, of course, his assistant must do it;" and he here turned toward Pip.

"Yes, Pip," said boy after boy.

Poor, trembling Pip! Didn't he wish he had been born in the previous century! No amount of coaxing could prevail upon, him to approach the dreadful dragon that had carried off the tin dipper, and every body else declined the same honor.

Finally Wort made this offer:

"I'll go down to-Old Tim's boat, and Tim may be hanging round, and I'll see what I can see."

This was a relief to the club, and entirely safe for Wort.

"I'll go at once," he said, and away he went.

Charlie went up to a store on "Water Street at the same time, and chanced to meet Miss Bertha Barry.

"We've met with a loss," said Charlie, with a sober face.

"Any one dead?"

"O no; but the club has lost its tin dipper."

"Tin dipper?"

"Yes, teacher, where we kept our money."

"O!"

"All our money has gone."

"How much!"

"Ten cents."

"Hem, hem; sorry."

"We think we know who did it."

"You know certainly."

"No, but we think we do, and the feller is just bad enough to do it."

"It's pretty hard to have people think you are bad; and then, if you are thought to have done something you were never guilty of, that is worse still. I don't think it fair to charge a wrong thing on any body unless we know pretty certainly. It is not just."

Charlie had not thought of it that way before.

"I guess you are right, teacher."

Bidding her good-bye, he was moving off, when she said: "Stop one moment. Whoever that boy is, I wish you'd get him out to Sunday-school."

"What an idea!" thought Charlie. "Tim Tyler's going to Sunday-school!"

In the meantime Wort had been prosecuting his bold investigations. He strolled down the lane, passing several cottages, and then a fish-house, where several men were splitting and salting fish. All these were on the left side of the lane. On the right was a long dock, and in it were several boats.

"There is Tim Tyler," exclaimed Wort, "and there is his boat. There is young Tim, the thief!"

It was an old boat that Wort looked into as he stood upon the stairs leading down into the dock. It was a boat badly battered, like its owner.

"If the red paint could be got off Tim's nose and put on his boat, it would be better for both," thought Wort.

Old Tim was fixing a net in the stem of his boat. Young Tim was in another part of the dock, hunting amid the muddy flats for relics.

"There she is!" said Wort to himself. He had detected a dipper in the bottom of the boat. "Now is my chance," thought Wort. He reached down to the coveted dipper. It was a venerable piece of tinware.

"That's too old to be ours," reflected the daring Wort. "Let me turn it over and see if there is a mark on the bottom. Bah, an old worm! That is not our dipper."

"Here, you thief! what are you meddlin' with that property for?" roared a voice.

It was Old Tim. His face was red as a boiled lobster, and as he crooked his bare arms and rested them on his hips, they looked like the claws of a mammoth lobster ready to crawl out and seize any offender.

"Guess I'll go," thought Wort, and off he hurried to tell the club his ill-success, and that their detective in search of a thief had been called one.

A few minutes later Juggie exclaimed to the disconsolate circle, "Dar's de organ-grinder."

It was indeed he hurrying along the lane and turning a troubled face toward the barn, for no monkey came with him. Had he lost his friend from the far South?

"He gone!" said the grinder, as he reached the boys. "You sheen him?"

"Seen your monkey?" asked Sid.

"Yes, yes! You sheen my leetle mun-kee?"

"Why, no."

"You—you—you," and the grinder swept the circle to find out if any one had seen the lost favorite. No one had seen him.

"O, O dear!" lamented the grinder excitedly.

Poor organ-grinder! his face was wrinkled as badly as that of his missing assistant when attempting to pick a very bad nut.

"You go—find—my—mun-kee?"

"O, yes," said the president, "we will hunt. Come on."

They scattered, tumbling over fences, climbing shed roofs, diving into corners, shouting, yelling, and stirring up the neighborhood thoroughly. It did no good. "My munkee" refused to be found.

The boys went to school and returned, meeting in the barn chamber once more.

"There's some business to be done, Mr. President," said the "securtary," in a very formal way. But where was the president? He was no more to be found than the monkey. A little later, Wort Wentworth was looking out of the window.

"Here comes Sid," he shouted.

Sid was running through the yard, when, seeing the boys at the window, he stopped, and shouted excitedly:

"O, fellers, I have made a discovery! It's all out now. Come!"

What was out he did not say, but turned and speedily was out himself in the lane.

"Come on, boys," called the governor, and down the stairs they went, rushing, shoving, tumbling, just in time to see the last of Sid's legs disappearing round the corner of the house. They hurried after him, down the lane, then up a little passage-way between two buildings on the left. Then they turned aside to the rear of a barn, and there the panting, confused group halted.

"There!" said Sid, solemnly, pointing as he spoke. "The mystery is over. Poor feller!"

Dangling from the roof by a cord that was twisted round his neck, swung the dead monkey! In the grasp of his rigid paw was the missing dipper.

"I see the shield!" sang out Wort. Yes, there was the mark identifying the stolen property. Poor little child of the tropics, swinging in his leafy, native haunts from bough to bough, gripping the branches with paw and tail, he little anticipated that his last swing would be by the neck, like that of a murderer from the black, unsightly gallows! He had strayed away, carrying with him the cord binding him to his master's wrist. In his peregrinations over various roofs, he had examined the cupola, and reaching a paw through an opening where a slat chanced to have been removed, he had abstracted the property of the club. Whatever money was in the dipper had been spilled hopelessly as marbles in the sea. Attempting to come down by a spout from the last barn-roof visited, he was entangled in the cord that had caught about a nail in the roof. Finally, the cord was twisted about his neck and twisted the life out of him. The thief was holding out the dipper as if asking for more, and showing that the ruling passion was strong in death. There were many sighs from the tender-hearted, sympathetic boys. All were ready to pity and forgive, but pity and forgiveness could not bring the little creature back to life.

"Let's bury him!" said a tearful voice. It was Tony, who said little generally, but he was now moved to speak in his secret sympathy for this wandering child of the sun. The organ-grinder was notified, and then a grave was dug for his dead property under the leafiest apple-tree. Charlie furnished a box, and Wort brought fresh straw from his stable. The box with its occupant was laid in the grave, and the pitiful face of the monkey was then covered up forever.



CHAPTER X.

AUNT STANSHY'S BOARDER.

Aunt Stanshy had often said she would never have boarders, and she would "go to the almshouse first," yes, she "would." One day, though, there came to the house a frank, lively, irrepressible young man of nineteen.

"I am a stranger here," he said, "but my name is Somers, Will Somers, and I have come here to be a clerk in Tilton's apothecary-store; been in Boston, you know, with Tompkins & Thomas, Tilton, when he was up the other day at our store, said that he wanted a clerk and offered me the chance, which I concluded to accept. I want a boarding-place, marm; but what a town this is? Do I look like a tramp, and if I don't, what is the matter that I cant get a boarding-house? Do I look like one?"

Here he looked at Aunt Stanshy, making such an appeal with his frank, blue eyes, that Aunt Stanshy could not well do otherwise than say, "Why, no!"

"Then wont you take me?"

"O—I—I—said I never would take boarders,—and—and—I am unprepared,—and—and—"

"O this room will do first-rate. I shouldn't want one any better, really. I know"—here he gave a very approving glance about the room. "Now come, do! It would please mother very much."

"Have you a mother living?"

"O yes, and she is one of the best mothers, too, and I think you look like her. There are four of us brothers. How much your little boy looks like my little brother Willie at home! Come here," he said to Charlie, who had opened the door to ask Aunt Stanshy a question, "come here and see what apothecaries carry in their pockets. Some folks think they only carry drugs and such things, but you see if it is so?" Here he put into Charlie's fat hand a long and toothsome piece of checkerberry pipe stem!

"He is not my little boy really," explained Aunt Stanshy, and then she went on to say who Charlie was, and also told about other things, finally saying so much concerning the Macomber family that he ceased to be a stranger and seemed to become a relative, a species of long-absent son, and consistently what could Aunt Stanshy do but let Will Somers—an arrival in Seamont only a few hours old—have that sacred apartment—her front room?

"What a fool I am!" soliloquized Aunt Stanshy. She watched Will Somers go down the street after the interview, and heard him whistling "The girl I left behind me." Did he mean Aunt Stanshy? "I'm a nat'ral-born fool, I do believe," she exclaimed, "letting a perfect stranger have that room; but there, it will be sort of nice having him round. I s'pose he will want to stick a lot of things into that room." And didn't he stick up "things" and make changes? Down came the two yellow crockery crow-biddies that had roosted on the mantelpiece the last twenty years, never having paid for the privilege with a single crow. Down came two vases of dried grasses. Down came a flaming red, yellow, orange, and green print of an American farm-yard. Up went various things. Over the mantel-piece was suspended a picture of Abraham Lincoln, garnished with American flags, and along the mantel-piece was ranged a row of photographs, principally of young ladies, several fans coming at intervals, while about the room, on various brackets, stood more photographs, mostly feminine, and more flags, all American. It ought to be said in fairness that, while several of the young ladies did not have at all a family look, others did, and were introduced to Aunt Stanshy as Will's sisters. He had a flag over his mother's picture. Then there was a red-hot chromo of a fire-engine, and a cool one of two white bears on a cake of ice.

"O dear, what a boarder!" said Aunt Stanshy, going into the room twenty-four hours after it had been very orderly arranged by her. "Things are stirred up now. It looks like a tornader."

That was the way it generally appeared, and yet Will Somers, impulsive, careless, thoughtless, but frank, enthusiastic, generous, dashing, and honorable always, was very popular with Aunt Stanshy and Charlie. In Charlie's eyes he was a marvelous being. Such wonderful fires in the city as he told Charlie about! And then, what did Aunt Stanshy's boarder do but join the "Cataract" engine company in Seamont! He made a stir generally in the old place, starting a gymnasium and organizing a "reading circle," and putting things generally in a whirl. He had a "voice," and he had a guitar, so that his "serenades" were famous; and he set Aunt Stanshy's heart all in a flutter one night when, awaking about twelve, she heard his well-known voice leading off in a serenade, while he twanged his guitar to the tune, "O dearest love, do you remember?" Will Somers was popular in a very short time with every body. In the club-circle he was the object of an open, undisguised admiration. They quickly made him an honorary member, and he quickly set them up a "pair of bars," put in proper position the ladder, and suspended swings, that they might practice gymnastics every day. Every mother who had a boy in that club expected almost any day that her idol might be brought home stretched on a shutter or bundled up in a wheelbarrow. No limb though was broken, and there were some wonderful developments of "muscle" (so the club thought). One day the new honorary member made an offer.

"Boys, I can have the next Saturday afternoon that comes along, and Aunt Stanshy says there is a garrison-house on the other side of the river. Come, I'll hire a boat and take you over."

"O good!" "Yes, we'll go!" "Three cheers!" "Hurrah for Will Somers!" were some of the outcries greeting the proposition.

"I think, boys, all the honorary members ought to be invited."

"Certainly," said Sid, and Aunt Stanshy was invited.

"See me going! The idea!" she exclaimed.

"What if the minister should see me going off with a parcel of boys!"

"He would say you were a very sensible woman," said Charlie, and Aunt Stanshy went.

The club admired the rowing of Will Somers as he performed with bare arms and showed a "fearful muscle." The boat was a very large one accommodating all-the party, but the oars-man refused to have any help, and progress was slow. At last the other side of the river was reached in safety. They walked through a ship-yard, and then, turned into a country road, sweet with wild flowers, nodding on either side. Beyond this they came to a piece of road, bordered with stiff, stout pines.

"There it is!" said Aunt Stanshy. "It is that block-house."

"What! the garrison-house?" inquired Sid. "Big as that? I thought they were smaller."

"The real garrison-house is in the corner, this way, and makes one room on the first floor. People that came to live in the garrison-house built above it and built beyond it, turning the garrison-house into a single room in a big, old-fashioned building. Mr. Parlin, may we take a look at the garrison-house?"

"Sartin, sartin. Step in. I guess Amanda is there, washin' the baby; but she's used to children, and wont mind you more than flies," said a stout, broad-shouldered farmer, passing through the yard, a hoe resting on his shoulder. "Let me go with you."

Amanda, who was washing the baby, and at the same time trying to keep in decent order six other children, gave them a hearty welcome, and showed that she did not mind them more than "flies."

"Aunt Stanshy, how d'ye do? Are these all your children?" asked Amanda, laughing.

"Yes," said Sid; "she is our mother to-day, and we are proud of her."

The white shields all smiled their approbation of Sid's ready gallantry.

"And this is the garrison-house?" inquired Will Somers.

"Yes," replied Mr. Parlin; "we are between its walls, and solid walls, too, they are. See that feller overhead stickin' out from the ceilin'. There is a beam for you, all of oak, too, and it measures eleven inches by thirteen. Now step outside. There, boys, in that corner, the clapboards are broken, and you can see what was the original style of the walls. They were laid in this way: big, square sticks of oak were laid one upon the other, the ends dovetailed and secured by pins, the cracks being filled with mortar. You see, no Injun bullet could go through that wall, and there would be little satisfaction in building a fire against it, unless an immense one."

Will Somers was here striding over the ground, pacing the length of the garrison wall.

"About twenty feet," he said.

"Yes, twenty feet hits the mark," replied Mr. Parlin. "The sticks are a foot wide, and measure six inches through. It makes a pretty good wall. Step in and I'll show you where they went in and out. There, it was that narrow door over in that side, and that openin' up there, about two feet square, they say, was the winder, and they used to fire out of it. At night they fitted a block into it and fastened up the door-way with logs."

"Did they have any Indians about here, any real ones?" asked Charlie.

"There is only one kind, sonny, when you talk about full-blooded Injuns, and I guess our fathers found it out. Injuns! Thick as pizen any day. Why, down in that place just beyond here a woman was goin' along one day, and she was carryin' an earthen pot. The Injuns just whooped out on her, and it was the last time the poor thing was seen alive. The pot was found afterward, and is kept by one of our families in town to-day. Injuns! I guess so. Of course, when they were about here the alarm was given, and the people came flockin' to the garrison-house, and they were safe enough here."

How the eyes of the club projected! The governor informed Pip that his orbs stuck out far enough to hang a mug on.

The party slowly made its way back to the boat.

"How foggy it is!" said Aunt Stanshy.

"It has all come up while we were gone."

"Don't worry," said Will. "I'll row you across."

"I hope you wont row us anywhere else, I'm sure."

"Don't worry," again remarked the young apothecary, and in a very confident tone.

"Let me pint you first right for Peleg Wherren's fish-house, for there's a good landin' place at his wharf," said Aunt Stanshy.

Standing on the pebbly shore, she bowed to the level of the boat's rail, and then aimed her as if an enemy directing a columbiad at Peleg's fish-flakes, eel-pots, and other articles, promising to let a cold shot drop in their midst.

"There, I've pinted her; now go right across."

"All right," sang out Will, cheerfully.

Like a great, gray, woolly blanket, the fog rested on the river, and Seamont was as effectually hid as if fifty miles away.

"Look—out!" screamed Aunt Stanshy. Something big was now looming up directly before the bow of the boys' boat.

"Don't run that ship down," said the president.

"I wont," replied the apothecary, "if they'll get out of the way."

"Ship ahoy!" he shouted.

"Aye, aye!" came from the vessel.

"What ship is that, and how many days out?"

"The Dolphin, and one day out from—"

The remaining words were lost.

"This is the 'Magnificent,' ten minutes out from t'other side of the river!" shouted Will.

The coaster disappeared as if smothered under the gray woolly blanket that had settled down on every thing.

"Why don't we come to the wharf?" inquired Pip.

"Because we haven't got there."

Will's reason was received with laughter, but Pip persisted in his questioning. "What if we thouldn't get there at all?"

"O we will."

Gov. Grimes and Wort had been very anxious to pull an oar, and Will gratified them. But the governor could not row. Will had urged him to stop. The governor's resoluteness sometimes ran into obstinacy, and it did now.

"Just see me row—away," cried the governor, refusing to stop, but as he was about to say "away," his oar slipped out of the rowlock, and he finished the sentence, his feet going up into the air and his head going down into the bottom of the boat!

"Caught a crab, governor?" shouted the president.

The boat stopped in the midst of the commotion that followed the governor's tumble, and when Will started his craft again, he did not appreciate the fact that its bow had shifted its aim.

"Where are we goin'?" inquired Aunt Stanshy.

"Home," answered Will. "I'm all right. A few more strokes must fetch us all right to the wharf," and he pulled lustily on his oars.

"It is my fear that we are all wrong," said Aunt Stanshy. "I know something about this river, and about fogs, and about people rowing round like fools and getting nowhere."

The members of the club now looked serious, and Will was provoked at Aunt Stanshy's remark.

"Halloo there!"

This was an unexpected shout from the heart of the fog, and after the shout came a black boat, and in it was a man dressed like a fisherman. He wore a "sou'wester" and a striped woolen shirt, also big cow-hide boots that came above the knees of his pants.

"Where are we?" asked Will. "Anywhere near Wherren's wharf?"

"Where are you? Wal, it is safe to say in a gin'ral way that you are in the river."

"I know that, friend," said Will, "but are we headed for the shore?"

"That depends on the shore you want to find. It's my opinion that if you young folks keep on just as your boat is headed, you'll strike Europe if you have good luck."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed the apothecary, "we can't be that much out of the way."

"Try it and see."

"Well, just where are we and which way ought we to go to reach Wherren's wharf?"

"We are now down near Forbes's Island, and—"

"Forbes's Island!" screamed Aunt Stanshy. "Did you ever!"

"And my compass says if one wants to get up river, he must go in a direction directly opposite to that which you are now taking!"

The apothecary's face fell several inches, Charlie thought.

"When you are out on the river, you are always safer to have a compass, for fogs may come up and you don't know where you are. I'm goin' up the river and I should be happy to show you where Wherren's wharf is, for you might as well hunt for a clam inside of an iceberg as to hunt for the wharf down here."

"Thank you," said Aunt Stanshy.

"Haven't I seen you before, marm?"

"I dare say."

"I was at your place and you gave me a job, sawing wood, this summer."

"O, is it you, mister? I see now."

"The same one. One good turn deserves another; so let's go along together."

All in the club were glad to see the man, excepting Wort.

Up the river they slowly but safely went, the fisherman guiding his party through the fog to the place of landing. A part of the way he had towed them along, throwing them the painter of his boat.

"Whenever John Fisher can do you a favor, marm, let me know it," said the man.

"Three cheers for John Fisher!" shouted the club. Wort joined in this, and he also said to himself, "I wish I had told him not to mind my seeding him. I will, the next time; see if I don't."

Peleg Wherren's fish-house was a neighbor of the lane, and from the boat the party passed to Aunt Stanshy's. As Charlie went along, he noticed a woman in the lane.

She wore a rusty black hood, a faded red shawl, and an old calico dress. Her general look was that of poverty. She turned as she heard the sound of steps, and, turning, chanced to face Aunt Stanshy. Thereupon the two women both swung round and looked away, like neighboring vanes struck by opposite currents of wind. Aunt Stanshy started and went ahead rapidly. In a moment Charlie heard some one crying. Looking back he saw it was Pip, who had fallen and hurt himself. The woman in faded clothes was quite nigh, and immediately running to Pip, helped him up, saying, in a pitying, motherly way, "You poor little fellow!"

"She has a pleasant face," thought Charlie. "Who is it?"

He asked Simes Badger, who came down the lane.

"That? that is Jane."

"Who is Jane?"

"Tim Tyler's sister."

"Old Tim's?"

"Yes, and young Tim's mother."

"Where does she live?"

"O the Tylers all live in the same nest."

"Jane and Aunt Stanshy, then, do not speak to one another," reflected Charlie.



CHAPTER XI.

THE CLUB IN SPLINTERS.

There is such a thing as a club breaking, going to splinters even. This sad end of a club was experienced by the Up-the-Ladder Club. It was not a strange thing, as all human organizations have their ups and downs, and many have their downs especially.

It happened in this way.

"Boys," said the president one day, "let's play school. I'll be teacher. No; let's have a public declamation—pieces, you know, and so on. Then we can charge something and perhaps get a little money—nails, I mean."

The real cash was scarce, and nails became a necessity.

"And not play school?" asked the literary governor. "A school is real interestin', you know."

"Yes, we might play that afterward as a sort of rest."

"Agreed," was the general sentiment. The old sheet that had done service so many times was once more brought out and strung across one corner of the barn chamber. An audience of three was secured, the governor's youngest brother, Pip's little sister, and Sid Waters's young cousin from the country. The members of the club gathered behind the sheet for action, but the auditors, all of them plump children, were ranged in a row upon a window-blind supported by blocks of wood. The first piece was a song by Sid. He strutted out pompously and began, "How beau—" He stopped. He had forgotten his bow. Executing this, he started once more, "How beautiful the cow—"

He was halting again.

"How beautiful the cow—"

He hesitated once more.

"O beautiful cow," sang out the roguish Wort behind the sheet.

"Shut up!" shrieked the infuriated vocalist, rushing to the bed-sheet. "Don't interrupt me!"

He resumed his recitation:

"How beautiful the cow-slip Upon the verdant mead, How diligent the sower Who drops the tiny seed."

He continued and finished the piece amid great enthusiasm on the part of the boys behind the sheet, who applauded tumultuously. There was little movement on the part of the butter-tubs. They opened their eyes and stared wonderingly. Then they opened their mouths and grinned.

Charlie now appeared, announcing as his selection "Independence Bell," a subject which he commenced to treat vigorously. The reference was to the bell at Philadelphia, rung at the Declaration of Independence, and somebody behind the sheet now began to shake a cowbell, a device which it was thought would heighten the effect of the performance.

"'Taint time!" called out Charlie, turning in despair to the curtain. Here Wort's round, beaming face appeared at a rent which was growing larger every few minutes.

"Tell me when," he whispered.

Charlie resumed his recitation. Soon he whispered, "Go it!" Didn't Wort do his duty! No bell-ringer in Philadelphia could have been more enthusiastic, and no cow astray seeking after home ever wagged her bell so continuously. It was afterward found out that every boy behind the curtain had a chance to swing that bell, a fact accounting for the popularity of the piece and for the tumultuous applause following it. The applause came from brother-performers, but was none the less gratifying to the speaker.

The final piece was by Wort, "The Last Rose of Summer." If given, no one can say how successful it might have been, but while the subject implied a compliment to Wort and those preceding him, the adjective "last" was ominous. There were several boys struggling to look through the curtain, one through the old rent Wort had used, and the others through new rents that they had ingeniously made with their fingers. But what curtain could hold up against the continued pressure of three stout boys? There was nothing that such a curtain could do but come down; and this it did, the three boys sprawling at the base of the stem of the Last Rose of Summer—in other words, at Wort's feet! Wort, in turn, was ignominiously night-capped by the sheet, for it completely covered him. The butter-tubs now gave way to their sense of the ludicrous, and clapped and laughed merrily. This did not please the four boys in or on the floor, who angrily rubbed their shins. Sid declared that it was too bad to act as disgracefully. All this was poor preparation for the serious duties of school-keeping, to which the president now directed his attention. With how much pomp and dignity he took up the duties of school-teacher, confronting a row of uneasy boys occupying seats on a green blind, each one wearing his cap!

"Hats off!" shouted Sid.

"Where are my books?" asked Charlie.

"They are probably where they ought to be, young man, in your desk."

Each boy then proceeded to take an imaginary reader out of an imaginary desk. Wort, though, had a book.

"All properly supplied with readers? Open them. Read, 'Merry Gentlemen,' read. Wort may begin."

There was no response.

"Read, I say."

There was silence still.

"Do you mean to disobey me?"

"You haven't told us what to read," replied Wort.

"Yes, I have."

"You haven't," stoutly reaffirmed Wort. "You said, 'Merry gentlemen, read.'"

"I mean the piece called 'Merry Gentlemen,' on page—well, you know. We have read it in school enough times to know it, and then scholars ought to know their readers well enough to be able to turn to any place and read without a book even. Who is that speaking? Tell me. Haven't I told you a thousand times that there must be no speaking in this school? I see the guilty scholar. Richard Grimes, come this way!"

"I didn't."

"No trifling, young man. Come this way," and collaring the refractory Rick, Sid led him into the closet. The governor was not to be wholly suppressed, and kept protruding a red pug-nose into very plain sight.

"Teacher," called out Wort, "I see a red sugar-plum sticking out."

"Richard, come this way. You're looking out."

"No, sir; it was my nose."

"Hold out your hand. If you flinch, sir, you will receive another."

The punishment was moodily received, and the governor went back to the closet. Charlie and Wort were soon consigned to the same spot for disobedience. Pip was noisily moving about.

"Say," whispered Sid, "Be good, and take your seat properly."

"Take your seat properly!" he then roared.

"Pip, you may read about the 'Caravan,' on the fifth page. Take Wort's book."

"Jutht thee—" began Pip.

"Juggie and Tony, you may both go into the closet for giggling," sharply interposed the teacher. "Go now!"

There were now five boys inside the closet, five restless immortals with ten restless legs and ten restless arms.

"Read, Pip, about the caravan."

"Jutht thee, the wild beathth—"

In harmony with this thought came a loud roar from the closet.

"Now you've got to be better," said Sid, turning to the wild beasts, "or I will resign and I won't teach."

"Let me be teacher," squeaked Pip.

The principal, though, did not resign; but, advancing to the closet or cage door, was about to make an appeal to his infuriated caravan. They anticipated him.

"Teacher, Charlie is pinching me."

"Ow! somebody's on my foot."

"There isn't room! I can't breathe!" declared a third.

"It is disgraceful, boys, how you act," said their aged teacher. "You can't play school worth a cent. Pip, come here!"

The only scholar now on duty had disgraced himself by making up faces behind his teacher's back, and as Sid suddenly turned, the culprit was detected.

"Pip, hold out your hand. There, take that!"

"Ow! you hit too hard."

"He will cry. Don't hit too hard!" shouted a warning voice from the closet.

"Booh-ooh-ooh!" went Pip.

"I didn't hit you hard," explained the "principal of the academy," as he had several times called himself. "You mustn't be a-foolin' in school. If you were in a real school you would get worse whippings than that."

Pip's only answer was, "Booh-ooh-ooh!"

"Wort, come here. You are not presenting a respectful face to your teacher. I caught you, sir. Hold out your hand."

"I don't want to."

"Do you rebel?" and the principal swelled as if ambitious to puff himself into a giant.

It is not pleasant to put it on record that Wort did rebel. He refused to hold out his hand, and when Sid seized him he resisted. Then a tussle set in, and it was doubtful whether the teacher would floor the scholar, or the scholar floor the teacher. But they drew off and scowled at one another like two thunder clouds.

"There," said the principal of the academy finally, "I am not going to be teacher any more. Who wants my chance may have it."

"And I won't belong to this old club any more," said Wort, smarting under the castigation he had received. "Who wants my chance may have it."

"'Tith an old club," sobbed Pip, "and who wantth my chanth may have it."

"O, fellers, let's not get mad," said the president.

"Pooh!" exclaimed the governor. "You can say so, who gave all the lickin's."

"And not had one yourself," said Charlie.

"O, fellers, don't get mad," besought Sid once more. "You know it was for your good."

This last remark was greeted with sneers, showing that Sid's labors for the welfare of youth were not appreciated. There was not only a determination to get mad, but to stay mad. Besides, the offended ones were moving toward the door, and this in a quarrel always looks bad.

"Let it go," said Sid. "I did not mean to hurt you. Come, let's march down stairs. I was going to have you march down stairs properly, just as we do at school. Come, let's form a line."

"Yes, and you be cap'n," sulked Wort.

"You may be, then," said Sid.

"I aint goin' to march," sobbed Pip.

That feather was too much for the camel's back, especially as the camel in this case was a two-legged one, and a boy like Sid, and he made no further attempts at reconciliation.

"Go it as you please, then," he said, angrily, and it was, indeed, a go-it-as-you-please column that rushed down stairs.

"I'm going home," said Wort.

"O, don't!" pleaded Charlie.

"Let him go!" shouted Sid.

"And me, too," squeaked Pip, and a second sullen knight passed out of the yard.

"It's of no us staying here, and I guess I'll go off and find Billy," observed the governor, and he left to hunt up his absent cousin.

"My mother wants me, and I might as well go, for the club is broken up," said Sid. He sauntered out of the yard with a reckless air, his hands in his pockets.

Charlie, Juggie, and Tony were now the only ones left, and they looked at one another sorrowfully.

"Charlie! Come!"

It was Aunt Stanshy calling. Tony and Juggie now moved off, and Charlie went into the house with a heavy heart.

"What is the matter, Charles Pitt Macomber?"

"Club has broken up," and Charlie's lips quivered.

"Mad?"

Charlie did not speak, but moved his head up and down like a saw.

"Who? Sid, Rick, Wort, Pip?"

Each time the saw went up and down.

"Are you mad?"

"I was, but I am not now."

"I'm sorry. I guess it's a pretty bad case, and the club has all gone to splinters."

The club in splinters! All that day the chamber was deserted. It was forsaken the next bright summer day. A mouse came out of his hole, and, looking timidly about, gave a faint, surprised squeak. The flies buzzed in the sunshine, and had all the time they wished to hum through their tunes. The only other noise was the wind that murmured about the door and the window that Aunt Stanshy had closed up so resolutely.

Nobody came to climb the ladder, and it did have such a forsaken look. Nobody troubled the sheet, or the closet, or the various relics strewn about.

Alas! alas!

The club was in splinters!



CHAPTER XII.

THE CLUB MENDED.

"Then the club is all broken up?"

"Yes," said Charlie, mournfully.

"How did it happen?"

"You see, Will"—every body called the apothecary's clerk Will—"we had a school and Sid kept it, and he licked the fellers, and they couldn't stand it."

"I see."

"But I think Sid wanted to make up."

"And it was easier for him to make up than for the boys who had got the lickings, was it?"

"I guess it was," said Charlie, laughing.

"Too bad to be broken up!"

"Yes," and Charlie's laugh was turning to a cry.

"You didn't think of the notice stuck up on the post, 'No cross words?'"

"Why, no! I know I forgot all about it."

"I don't believe your teacher, Miss Barry, will be pleased to know of the quarrel, as she is a kind, good-natured lady, and makes folks kind to one another."

"I 'spose she wont like it."

"Wouldn't you like to have your broken club mended?"

"Yes, yes," replied Charlie, excitedly. "How?"

"There is one way to do it and fix all things right again." As Will spoke he also attended to his breakfast, interjecting his words amid sips of coffee and mouthfuls of Aunt Stanshy's flaky biscuit. He was hungry, as he had been out before breakfast in answer to a furious alarm of fire.

"You see, when a club is in pieces, that it may be mended again, each piece must resolve to do what it can toward a coming together again. Will you?"

"Yes, I will."

"There's one. Who is the next one to bring round, the next piece of club to make willing to be joined to the rest?"

"I guess Wort feels about as stuffy as any one. There he is out in the lane now."

"Is he? Go, get him."

The "stuffy" splinter of the club was brought in. Will had disappeared, but soon came back to the table, bringing from his room a neat, white package of—Charlie's curious eyes could not guess what.

"Art you Wort Wentworth?" asked Will.

"Yes."

"I have some candy for you."

Here the apothecary displayed various long, dainty sticks of candy, exceedingly toothsome in their looks. There were checkerberry-pipe and licorice-pipe and sassafras-pipe, and—how Wort's eyes did glisten and his mouth water as he imagined the different kinds there!

Will did not forget, to Charlie's joy, that another boy present had also several sweet teeth. Having sweetened up Wort's disposition, Will said,

"You and Charlie will now do me a favor, won't you?"

"I will," said Charlie, eagerly, who had great admiration for the apothecary, but might possibly have been moved also by great love for his candy.

"And I will," said Wort, determined not to be outdone by Charlie.

"Well, now, the club that has been broken is going to be mended, and you two will forgive and forget, wont you?"

"I will," declared Charlie, promptly.

Wort hesitated.

"Take this while you are thinking," said Will, pressing into Wort's hands an extra large piece of rose-pipe.

As he took it, Wort growled, "Sid began it."

"But will you end it if Sid is willing to make up? You wont hold out?"

"N—n—o."

"There is Sid!" said Charlie.

"Where?"

"Going along the lane, that boy with a blue cap on."

"You two stay here, and tell Aunt Stanshy, Charlie, that I'll be back soon to finish my breakfast," and away went Will, without a hat, a cake of bread in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other.

"If that fellow isn't the greatest! He would leave a funeral in just that way if the impulse took him," declared Aunt Stanshy, watching him from the window, and secretly admiring him. "What a boy! He makes lots of trouble for me, O dear!"

"Aint he funny?" asked Wort.

"Funny?" replied Aunt Stanshy, who did not intend that any one else should depreciate her idol. "Funny? of course not."

All this time Will was chasing Sid, who was heading up the lane and was about entering Water Street. Sid was in a hurry, and unaware that he was wanted by any one in the lane, had broken into a run; but Will had run to so many fires that he was equal to this emergency and overtook Sid, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"What do you want?" asked Sid. "I want to catch that man ahead there and borrow his clam-digger."

"Come back to the house with me a little while."

Any of the club boys would do any thing for Will, and Sid turned.

"Good-morning, Mr. Somers."

Will turned his head, so covered with wilfully curly hair. In his hand were the bread and cheese still. He blushed as he said, "Good-morning, Miss Barry."

"Whew," he said to himself, "the teacher has caught me now!"

Several people indeed "caught" Will Somers, in that way, that morning, and wondered what he was doing, running bare-headed. He carried his point, though, captured Sid, and led him back to the house.

"Now, Sid," exclaimed Will, on his way to Aunt Stanshy's "there has been trouble in the Up-the-Ladder Club, I learn, and I want to fix it up, and you will help me, will you not?"

"O yes," replied Sid, whose nature was not a hard and implacable one.

"Wort is at the house, and you are willing to say you are sorry you hurt him, and you want to make up and be good friends?"

"O yes."

When Will entered the house with his prize, the two met Wort face to face.

"I want these two knights to make up and be good friends again, because it is all foolish and wrong, you know, holding out against one another," said Will.

The two boys eyed one another, Sid grinning, Wort looking sulky and foolish.

"Wort," said the late principal of the academy, "I am sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean to do it, but I suppose I was too anxious to keep up the discipline of the school, and I got agoing, you know. Let's shake hands and be friends."

Wort hesitated.

"You ought to do that," said Will. "Shake hands, Wort," and as he spoke he carelessly but effectively waved a stick of sassafras-pipe in Wort's sight. It is one of the most potent sticks that can be used for a boy's "licking."

"Well, I will," said Wort, "and I didn't mean to hurt you;" unwilling that Sid should be the only one thought able to inflict an injury.

"I now announce," said Will, "that soon as possible, I shall take every boy down to Sandy Beach for an afternoon's fun; that is, every knight who makes up."

This had a magical effect. All the disaffected knights followed the example of Sid and Wort, "making up" and joining the beach-party. The excursionists had a capital time on that occasion, and returned in such a frame of mind that it could be considered as settled that the club, once in splinters, was now mended.

The boys, on the subsequent Sunday, told Miss Barry that there had been a quarrel, but, added Sid, "It is all fixed now."

"I am very glad there has been a reconciliation," replied Miss Barry. "If there had been none, I should have felt that you were going down and not up the ladder. In our play we can be moving up, and reconciliation is a round in the ladder."



CHAPTER XIII.

A KNIGHT GOES TO SEA.

"And do you want to come to my launching?"

"You going to be launched?" asked Charlie.

"Not exactly," said Skipper Wentworth, Wort's father, "but my schooner is, and if you come to Raynes's ship-yard next Saturday, you will see her. You can tell any of the other boys to come if they like. Wort will be there."

Charlie went down to the yard the day before the launching. The schooner seemed to be an ant-heap where all the ants were stirring, and all were on the outside, so many men were at work. The club boys were quite numerously represented through their friends. Sid's father was flourishing a paint-brush high up on a staging. Pip's father and also Juggie's cousin were swinging their hammers about the cook's quarters Pip's grandfather, a blacksmith, was inspecting some of the iron-work of the vessel. A tall cousin of the governor was driving oxen. The clanking chains of the oxen hauling timber for the building of another vessel, the pounding of hammers, the shouts of the bosses ordering the workmen, made a lively compound of sound. The next Saturday, every thing was ready for the launching.

With eager eyes Charlie noticed all the movements of the workmen. He saw them drive the wedges under the schooner, and heard blow on blow as the wedges went in farther and farther. He saw them knock away the props holding the schooner in place, and along the ways, or planed timbers, well greased for the schooner's ride, he watched the vessel slowly then swiftly moving. Down, down she went, lower and lower, so deep into the waiting arms of the blue river, that the waters threatened to go over her, and then up she came gracefully, bringing a bridal-veil of snowy foam with her, and exciting the admiration of all the spectators, who vented their feelings in an uproarious "Hurrah!" One of the fortunate party that had permission to be in the vessel at its launching was Wort Wentworth, the skipper's boy.

"I must see every thing that there is," thought the inquisitive boy, and he turned, finally, into the state-room which the skipper himself expected to occupy as his quarters in the cabin. "Nice place," he said, climbing into his father's berth, and there curling up into one corner.

The day had been an exciting one, and yet tiresome, and Wort's next movement was to gape.

"Sort of sleepy," he said. The wind murmuring at the open window of the state-room had a drowsy sound, and—and Wort's head gave a sudden fall. He opened his eyes, and said, "This won't do; I mustn't go to sleep," But the wind continued to hum its drowsy tune as if saying, "Go to sleep, go to sleep, tired boy, tired boy; there, there!" Wort's head rose and fell several times, and each time he made a remonstrance. But the remonstrances were feebler one after the other, his eyes refused to open, and there in the captain's state-room was a boy fast asleep!

It was the latter part of the afternoon, and one of the men at work on the new vessel came to Wort's father, and said, "Cap'n, shall we let the schooner lie off in the stream to-night, or do you take her to her wharf?"

"No chance for her at the wharf, and she must stay here till Monday, and I don't think any one need stay with her and watch. She is so heavily anchored she can't very well run away. We will all leave. But where is my boy?"

"I think, cap'n, I see a boy like him going off with your brother."

"All right. My brother Nathan was here, and he will look after Wort. Now we will go."

When Skipper Wentworth reached home his wife told him that "Nathan" had said something about taking Wort home with him to spend a day or two at his farm, three miles away.

"Then Wort has gone with Nathan, wife?"

"I think he must have, as he has not come home."

"He is with Nathan. All right."

The good folks went to bed, and nobody told them where Wort was. The little waves rippling about the schooner may have known, and a bright, inquisitive star looking in at the cabin window may have known, but neither wave nor star told the secret. Toward morning Wort woke up. Where was he? He put out his hands expecting to feel the soft feather pillow that Mother Wentworth daily laid upon his bed. It was only a hard board that he felt above him and back of him. Where was he? He rubbed his eyes wide open, and little by little it came to him that he was in the cabin of the schooner. What if the vessel should break away from her moorings and drift off to sea? What if it had gone already, and this craft with a crew of one were actually on her voyage? His heart thumped hard in his fright. He crawled out of the cabin, making his way along as well as he could over pieces of board, running into a carpenter's saw-horse provokingly left in the door-way, and stroking his legs, he stepped outside. The wind from the water swept cool across the vessel. Where was he? Adrift? He turned toward the sea. The light at Simes Badger's lighthouse was still blazing, but far away above the dark, angry sea, there was a faint glow in the heavens.

"Good!" thought Wort. "Father's vessel hasn't broke loose, for there is the light-house where it was yesterday, and that's morning over there. She's coming!"

He turned toward the town. He saw one light shining from a house window, and thought it must signify a sick person or an early riser. Then he heard a cock crowing.

"Never knew a rooster had such a pleasant voice before," he said. All that he could do was to wait until Simes Badger's light went out, and day filled the eastern sky, and not only roosters but human beings were stirring in Seamont.

"Then some one will come and get me, I hope," thought Wort.

He patiently waited, watching the dark gurgling river and the brightening sky.

About six o'clock Simes Badger pushed off his boat from the light-house dock, leaving his assistant in charge.

"I must get my breakfast," he said.

He leisurely rowed up the river.

"Ah," thought Simes, "there is Skipper Wentworth's new craft. She sets easy in the water. She will make as trim a fore and aft as ever left this harbor."

He was now opposite the newly-painted black and green hull.

"Massy!" he exclaimed, resting on his oars, "What's that on deck? A hen there? Somebody is wavin' suthin'. Something must be wrong there. Let me take a nearer look."

He rowed close up to the vessel's side, and there detained his boat in the still, sparkling stream, raised his weather-tanned face, and saw a very fresh, boyish face looking down.

"O, Mr. Badger, come and get me!"

"Wort Wentworth, is that you?"

Simes knew that Wort had a reputation for scrapes, but was not prepared for this appearance under the present circumstances.

"What are you doin' there? You all alone?"

"I got asleep in the cabin, and they left me here."

"And you been here all night? It is a wonder the sharks didn't eat you," said Simes, who had a very vivid imagination.

"The sharks?"

"Well, no matter about them things. I s'pose now you want to go home?"

"Yes, if I can get down into your boat."

"I'm willin' to take you if you can get down."

"Couldn't I shin down the chain-cable?"

"O no! Look round and find a piece of rope and make it fast to something up there, and then drop your rope down here and come that way."

"What, drop myself down like the rope?" said Wort, grinning.

"Tut, tut, boy! come down the rope! Didn't I say so plain as day? and if I didn't, I will now."

Wort found a rope, made one end fast to the rail, and then, throwing the other end down to Simes, safely lowered himself into the stern of the light-keeper's boat. In fifteen minutes more Wort was at home, to the surprise and joy of his parents.

The club boys heard about Wort's experience, and had a word to say concerning it.

"I say, Wort," asked Charlie, "how do you like going to sea?"

"Did you catch any waleths?" inquired Pip.

"What did the mermaids say to you?" asked the governor.

"It is the last of your going to sea, Wort. You will have to be a land-lubber," said Sid.

This last remark touched Wort.

"No, sir! See if I don't go to sea." And go he did. Skipper Wentworth thought it would be pleasant to have Wort's company the first voyage, which would terminate the latter part of the year.

Mrs. Wentworth had every thing in readiness for her boy's comfort by the time the vessel sailed.

"What is her name?" he asked his father.

He only replied, "I want to surprise the club you belong to." One day, to the delight of the boys, he showed them the name painted in conspicuous letters on the stern, "White Shield." It was a mild autumn day when the "White Shield" went to sea. The club boys gathered on a wharf at the foot of the lane, and watched the vessel drifting down the river. They waved their handkerchiefs to Wort, who waved his in return. Then they stood and followed with their eyes the vessel in its flight. She passed Forbes' Island, passed the light-house, passed Rocky Reef, passed—out of sight.

That day, at twilight, Charlie went to Mr. Walton's house. The clergyman's mother received a message which Charlie brought from Aunt Stanshy, and asked him to come in.

"Sit down here," she said, and placed a chair before the open fire kindled on the edge of the autumn evening. "Sit down, and rest."

"'The 'White Shield' has gone to sea," he remarked, anxious to give the latest news.

"The 'White Shield'?"

"Haven't you heard about her?"

"No."

"Why, I thought every body knew about the 'White Shield.'"

And did she know that Wort Wentworth had gone to sea in the "White Shield?" No; she was ignorant of that important fact. How narrow the circle of her knowledge was!

"I know one thing, though, little boy," said the old lady, "that the sea, which fascinates so many young people, may prove to be a very hard master. O, I don't like to hear it roar on stormy nights!"

Then the old lady went to a picture of a ship at sea hanging on the wall. There she stood and sighed. Charlie wondered what it all meant.

"But there is one thing we can do on stormy nights," she added. "We can pray. And I sometimes think, nights when the winds are roaring, how many souls all along the coast must be kneeling while the sailors at sea are up in the rigging, climbing, or furling the sails."



CHAPTER XIV.

SETTING A TRAP.

Ring, ring, ring!

The bell of St. John's was busily swinging, flinging notes of gold and silver down upon the town, and in response, how many people came out into the streets as if to pick up the gold and silver shower. The bell was ringing for a temperance meeting. Many were immediately interested in the subject of temperance; but whether all would go, was a question. It was a serious doubt whether those that the meeting wanted would feel that they needed the meeting. There were several very important cases.

Case one—who?

Tim Tyler? He needed the meeting, but that is not the case here intended, but Dr. Tilton, the apothecary. Dr. Tilton? Yes. For some time it had been known he was in the habit of indulging in a glass, "only a glass." As a result, he had been helped home drunk from his store. He did not feel desirous to attend the temperance meeting.

Case number two, Tim Tyler? Not yet, but—Will Somers! Ah, that was sad. If you could have seen Aunt Stanshy, you would have thought it was the saddest thing in the world.

"O, Miss Barry," said Aunt Stanshy, bursting into tears, "I'm awful afraid I made an idol of that young man—so nice, you know. I've seen my idols break one after the other. I shouldn't have said a word about it, but he was seen on the street, and it became town talk, and it's all out and round. Dreadful, dreadful!"

"It is, and I'm afraid my uncle is responsible. It is bad every way. There is need of a temperance work here. We are all asleep," replied Miss Barry, who was calling at Aunt Stanshy's, the two women opening their hearts to one another during the call. Dr. Tilton was responsible for Will Somers's fall. One day, when Will was complaining of an ill feeling, the apothecary had proffered wine as a remedy, and had offered it several times when he was tired, and Will had fallen under the influence of a seemingly innocent ally. People began to talk about Dr. Tilton and his clerk. Then they began to shun the store. Not all, though, for a line of red noses and trembling hands and unsteady knees filed into the store, and not the sick people sent orders, but old topers frequented the place more and more. Dr. Tilton noticed the change, and was alarmed. Still he did not change that habit of taking "only a glass." Will Somers was unhappy. He saw his mistake, and knew that the community frowned upon him. He rarely whistled now. As for the musical instrument he once loved to perform upon, it was a silent piece of furniture. He had some fine qualities of character, and his vulnerable side was his susceptibility to outside influence. The enemy had found a weak wall on that side of his character, and there successfully assaulted him. Will knew that his misconduct grieved Aunt Stanshy. The club felt it, for by degrees the bad news reached them. It seemed as if each one was burdened by a load of guilt—as if having served in Dr. Tilton's store, Charlie, Sid, Tony, and the rest had there sinned, and, in consequence, each had been seen tipsy on the street, and each carried a load that bowed him.

It was Charlie who happened to be at home when his teacher was calling on Aunt Stanshy, and he accidentally overheard a fragment of the conversation. When Miss Barry was fairly out of the house, and Aunt Stanshy was returning through the entry to her kitchen-work, sighing by the way, Charlie ran to her and excitedly said, "We—we—will get up a meeting!"

"A meeting about what?"

"Why, why, temperance."

"Who get it up?"

"We—we boys—our club."

Aunt Stanshy guessed at once the occasion and object of Charlie's remarks, that he had heard the conversation between her and her caller, and that this proposition for a temperance meeting was to meet the grave necessities of the hour.

"Yes, yes," he said, "let's go and see teacher about it"

"What, go now?"

"Yes, you and she can talk it over."

In a few minutes Charlie and Aunt Stanshy were hurrying down the street as if suddenly summoned by the pressing sickness of a friend.

"O, let's get Sid," suggested Charlie, as they neared Sid Waters's house.

"Well," replied Aunt Stanshy.

Sid, whose appetite never failed him, was eating a lunch, but he responded at once to Charlie's invitation to "Come out."

"What's up, Charlie? I am the man for you," replied the president, who had an abundance of resources at his command, and was prepared—in his own opinion—for any emergency. "What is up? Down-townies round?"

"We want to have a temperance meeting. Come down to teacher's."

"All right. Temperance meeting? The club get it up?"

"I don't just know, but we can talk it over."

"If they want a meeting, we can give 'em one," said Sid, confidently.

Thus re-enforced, Aunt Stanshy and Charlie presented themselves at Miss Barry's door.

"Come in, come," said the teacher. "I have just got home myself."

"We—we have come," exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, "to see if we couldn't have a temperance meeting! You know we need it."

"O, I see; and the boys?"

"The boys," said Sid, proudly, "think you could rely on them to—to—pull an oar."

He felt it might be prudent not to propose to do the whole of the rowing, and offer the town a meeting managed wholly by the "Up-the-Ladder Club," but modestly—to—pull an oar.

"Splendid!" said the teacher, her enthusiasm charming the boys. "Among us all, I guess we can manage it."

"I don't know as I can do any thing except to get people out," said Aunt Stanshy, fearful that she might be called upon to speak in the meeting.

"Let us go and see Mr. Walton," suggested Miss Barry.

"It would be the very thing," declared Aunt Stanshy.

Very soon Aunt Stanshy, Miss Barry, Sid, and Charlie started for the minister's. On the way, Juggie and Tony were secured as new members of the column, and thus augmented, this eager temperance band appeared at Mr. Walton's door. Ushered into the study, Miss Barry told her errand.

"We need a temperance meeting very much, and we will have it at St. John's, and I want you boys—the club, Miss Barry—to do the most of the singing," said Mr. Walton.

"We will," said Sid. "I know I can speak for them."

"And Miss Barry will teach them what to sing, perhaps?" asked Mr. Walton.

"Yes sir," replied Miss Barry.

"I'll have my choir to help, but I expect the 'Up-the-Ladder Club' to do the most."

The boys were eager in their interest. To encourage them, Miss Barry said, "I'll make a little blue cross to go inside each white shield. A little blue cross—that is a temperance sign—will look pretty on the white silk."

"There, there, won't they be proud of it?" said Aunt Stanshy.

"Of course we will," declared Sid. "Knights, we must give three cheers for teacher when we get to her door."

During this conversation they were passing down the street, and when Miss Barry's door was reached, be assured that three hearty cheers were given for her.

"Now three for temperance!" cried Sid. Then they cheered for temperance.

"I feel that my boys are, indeed, mounting the ladder of the true and noble," was Miss Barry's thought, as from her window she saw the ardent young knights pass away.

The next day Aunt Stanshy met Miss Barry. "Miss—Miss—Barry," said Aunt Stanshy, nervously clutching her companion's shawl, "we must—pray for our meeting."

"O, we will, we will!"

There were earnest prayers going to God in behalf of that meeting. As step after step might be proposed, prayer went up from the altar of those two women's hearts especially, beseeching God to recognize and bless each step that might be taken. O in what a cloud of prayer that enterprise was enveloped!

Aunt Stanshy and Miss Barry were talking about the meeting one day.

"I wish, Miss Barry, we could make sure that every body would go to the meeting. Will Dr. Tilton go?"

"That's what I am wondering about, and Will Somers?"

Aunt Stanshy shook her head sadly: "He says, No."

"They must be there," said Miss Barry, "and—and—we must set a trap for them."

"A trap?"

"I'll ask my uncle to help the choir sing, and—of course, he wont refuse. I don't suppose he cares to come to the meeting because he needs it, but if others go he won't want to be left out, and if he can sing, that will give him a chance to attend. He is my uncle, you know."

The "trap" for Dr. Tilton worked successfully. He scorned the idea that he might need the meeting. This he said to himself. However, he would help the choir sing, he said, to his niece. But a trap for Will Somers! Who could make that?

"Won't you come to the meeting to hear us sing?" asked Charlie, with a sad face.

"O, you don't want me, Charlie," replied Will. "O, I can't go."

Aunt Stanshy made no remark. She sat silently, busily thinking, while Charlie and Will talked about the meeting. Aunt Stanshy was making a "trap."

The day before that appointed for the temperance meeting, she went to her pastor.

"Mr. Walton, the meeting will begin at half past seven. If—if—say about quarter after seven—you should let Charlie and the other boys go down to the church door and sing one or two of their pieces, it might draw folks in."

"Why, that's a good idea, and I wish you would ask them."

At a quarter after seven the next night the White Shields, each carrying a neat cross of blue on his badge, appeared at the church door and began to sing. It was the night when Dr. Tilton was accustomed to close his store earlier than usual, if customers did not appear; and at a quarter after seven Will Somers was accustomed that night to pass the church door on his way home. Would he fall into the trap that Aunt Stanshy had ingeniously set for him? The club began to sing their hymns. There was the touching plea containing the lines:

"O what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do? You have thought of some useful labor, But what is the end in view?"

Tony sang this. It seemed that night as if some of Italy's sweet singers must have lent him their notes. The people began to gather about the club. Aunt Stanshy was there on the watch, eager to see if Will Somers might be coming down the street. Tony's voice warbled away. Now it was an exultant note that he touched, and then his voice sank to a plaintive appeal:

"Is your heart in the Saviour's keeping? Remember, he died for you; Then what are you going to do, brother? Say, what are you going to do?"

As Tony sang, there was a young man leaning against the fence adjoining the church door. It was somebody listlessly leaning, lifting to the light of the street lamp a face on which rested the shadow of a great sadness.

"It's he!" said Aunt Stanshy, excitedly.

Charlie heard her. He guessed that it was some one out on the sidewalk whom she had discovered, and he stretched his small head beyond the ring of singers, anxiously looking out into the shadows. His sharp eye saw that form leaning against the fence. He could not wait until the song was finished. He ran out upon the sidewalk, and Aunt Stanshy followed.

"Do come, do come," pleaded Charlie, as he seized Will's hand and gently drew him toward the church.

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Stanshy, "We all want you."

And Will Somers irresolutely yielded to the gentle hands that were drawing him, and entered the church.

What a meeting that was!

"Never seed the beat of it in my life," said Simes Badger, who was off duty at the lighthouse that night, and having attended the meeting, reported it soon after to a band of his old cronies. "Why, when the pledge was offered that meetin', it seemed as if every man, woman, and child would go for it at once. No matter if they was as innocent of liquor as a baby a day old; they jest walked up and took that pledge. And Dr. Tilton, he couldn't stand it, and he hopped down and he jined the pledge. And his clerk, that Will Somers, he did write his name handsome. O, it was a meetin', I tell ye!"

Yes, it was a memorable evening. Dr. Tilton and Will Somers kept their word faithfully, and society recognized the fact and liberally patronized the doctor's store, afterward.

"Got a new 'pothecary in our town," said Simes Badger. "At any rate, he's good as new, and new things draw. A 'pothecary can do amazin' sight of harm if he aint jest the right sort of man in his business."

Society, outside the store, recognized the new life that Dr. Tilton and Will had begun. They were received cordially by their old friends. The club gathered about Will, treating him after the fashion of the old enthusiastic friendship.

"He's singin' once more and a playin'," Aunt Stanshy said to a neighbor, "jest as nice as can be. It does me good to see him."

And Tim Tyler—where was he?

His sister Ann did hope he would be reached, but she folded her old shawl about her shoulders and went away from the meeting, saying sorrowfully to herself, "Tim didn't come."

No, he was not at the meeting. He did not show any interest in the movement.

"But—but we can't give him up," some of his praying friends whispered.

And when our prayers refuse to let the angel of blessing go, was that angel ever known to forsake us?



CHAPTER XV.

THE FAIR.

Poor Charlie! His life did not seem to him to be altogether agreeable.

Being fat and good-natured, the boys were rather disposed to pick on him. Then a standing vexation at school was his arithmetic. In addition to these things, he had a special trouble one day to grieve him. His class was reading a selection called the "Miller." The teacher, Mr. Armstrong, permitted the members of the class to remain in their desks and there read. Charlie abused this privilege by clapping his head below his desk, and while the boys in another part of the room were reading, he was doing his best to pack away a corn-ball.

"Time enough," he had concluded, "before it is my time to read, to have something good to pay for my old arithmetic."

His mouth was full of corn-ball and preparing itself to take in more, when his teacher, watching the long detention of Charlie's head in such a humble posture, and suspicious of the real reason, stole softly up behind Charlie and, looking over his shoulder, was puzzled to decide whether the corn-ball was going into Charlie or he into the corn-ball. He quietly stole back to his desk and there abruptly shouted, "Macomber, you may read about the 'Miller' at once."

The shot struck. Charlie bounded up in great confusion, his month full of corn-ball!

"Hold, Macomber!" said the master, in a very sarcastic way. "It must be evident to you that a man cannot successfully read about the grinding of corn, and yet be grinding corn in his mouth at the same time." Then he broke out into a roar, "Stand out in the floor! You may do any further grinding there. Stop after school, also!"

Unfortunate Charlie! When he went home at a late hour Aunt Stanshy was disposed to rebuke him for his tardiness. This was too much for Charlie. He broke out into a whimper: "I think I have a sad life, only scoldings at home and scoldings and arithmetic at school."

"O, no!" said Aunt Stanshy, soothingly, guessing that the little fellow had had some trouble that day, and had been sufficiently punished for any fault; "O, no! not so bad as that! Haven't you a pleasant home?"

"Yes—you—you are kind, I know, real kind."

"Well, don't think any thing more about it. Here is a big piece of mince pie."

He had not eaten more than one half of his lunch when he felt very much comforted, and the outside world brightened very perceptibly. To comfort him still further Aunt Stanshy allowed him to go after several boys and bring them to the barn, and it was in connection with this gathering that a new and important enterprise was suggested by one of the boys.

"It's something that will pay," said Sid.

Every body wanted to believe it and was willing to help it along. Soon Charlie came running from the barn into the kitchen.

"Aunt Stanshy, will you please lend me your scales?"

"My what?"

"Your scales for weighing, please."

"What on earth is it now?" exclaimed Aunt Stanshy. It was a—so the placard on the barn door stated—it was A FAIR!

Charlie did not have much to say about it, but through the remainder of the day often hummed, or smiled and chuckled complacently. When Aunt Stanshy had lighted the kerosene lamp that had a big lion's claw for a base and boasted a yellow shade covered with green shepherdesses and blue sheep, then Charlie sat down at the center-table and for an hour was exceedingly busy. About eight he held up an object to Aunt Stanshy.

"What is that, Aunt Stanshy?" he asked.

"A rag-man," she replied, promptly.

The artisan's face dropped and a pout came out. A smile though quickly smoothed down the pout, and he exclaimed, in triumph, "Santa Claus! He's a friend of our club! We thought we would be in season for Christmas, and people could buy their presents of us, and—and—will you buy?"

"I will—buy—that."

"You will? I'll give you a kiss for that," and Aunt Stanshy's young lover came up to her and in his delight gave her a kiss. Of a tuft of cotton Charlie had made a head. Another tuft furnished a body; two more supplied arms to work with, and two more supplied legs to stand on. Charlie put a three-cornered hat on Santa's head and tied together the parts of his body with a girdle of pink worsted. A card on Santa announced the fact that he could be bought for TWO CENTS.

Charlie trembled when Aunt Stanshy's eyes were directed toward the price lest she might not think it worth the money.

"What's that?"

"Two cents," replied Charlie, in fear.

"O! Well, I'll give that."

"You will?" said Charlie, in delight. "I'll give you another kiss."

"Charlie," said the blushing Constantia, "you'll make a fool of an old woman like me."

In the night the lips of the sleeping Charlie parted as he said, with a smile, "Two cents!" When this good news of the first sale was announced to the club in the morning, it threw the members into a feverish excitement.

"First-rate opening, fellers," declared the president, "even before we have opened any thing."

"We don't open," said the governor, "till school is out to-night."

"Let's open now," said Billy Grimes, in the excitement of his enthusiasm over the news;

"What a booby!" said the governor, in plain language. "We have got no things here yet, and there are no buyers, and we must all clear out to school in ten minutes."

The governor's massive logic crushed the foolish Billy at once.

"Let's open in good style," said the president, "and do it to-night."

By fifteen minutes after four, just as soon as a lot of scampering, shouting boys could get to the barn, bringing pockets stuffed with "articles," the fair was declared "opened."

"But how dark it is!" said the president.

So it was. The boys had forgotten how early the sun was setting in the November days.

"Let's postpone it till to-morrow afternoon, when there's no school," said Charlie.

"Who's agreed?" asked the president.

"Me!" responded the club, vociferously. They all had prudently concluded to wait for the advent of more daylight, and, withdrawing from the barn, went down the yard talking as busily as if they were a lot of hens cackling after a successful venture at egg-laying. It had been left to Charlie to put above the notice, "FAIR," the word "POSTPONED."

"That will prevent any rush till morning, and save folks from being disappointed," Sid had declared.

In the afternoon every thing was under way, and Aunt Stanshy went out to see the fair.

"I should never know the place, I must say," remarked Aunt Stanshy, as her eyes swept the spot. There were several so-called "tables," such as an old window-blind and a disused shelf propped up by various supports like boxes and barrels. These tables were covered with pieces of the old curtain, now doing service for the last time.

"Here is the confectionery table," shouted Juggie. There were now on the table three pieces of molasses candy made by his grandmother. He had had twelve to start with, and, as he had sold none, the disposition of the missing nine pieces was a matter of grave suspicion.

"Here's the toy table!" called out Charlie. He had a few paper dolls and a few "hand-painted" shells, the decorator being Sid, and prominent on the table was the cotton image of that friend of the club, Santa Claus.

"Buy a corner-copier stuffed wid candy!" shouted Juggie, holding up a brown paper tunnel into which he was about dropping a solitary piece of candy.

The governor had the "harvest table," which was groaning under the weight of three pears and two papers of seed.

"What's this?" asked Aunt Stanshy, stopping before a discarded mantel-piece resting on a rabbit-box and a coal-hod. On this "table" were autumn leaves, sprigs of hemlock, a few ferns, and one chrysanthemum blossom.

"Thith?" replied Pip, who, like all the others, had put on a "Sunday smile" to attract customers. "Thith ith a flower table. Will you buy a flower?"

"If I can see one," said Aunt Stanshy, laughing.

"There," said Pip, triumphantly holding up the lonely chrysanthemum. "One thent only! Thomething rare!"

"I'll buy it, and here is the cent."

"Cath!" sang out Pip, in tones of command, addressed to a supposed cash-boy.

No one responded.

"Cath!"

"Why, you are the cash-boy," said the president, "and you bring the money to me, for I am the cashier."

"I tend a counter," squeaked Pip. A serious misunderstanding as to positions in the fair here threatened to arise, but it was all averted by the obliging Tony, who undertook to transport all bullion from the tables to the cashier's office.

There now appeared the president's little sister, "Callie Doodles," as she was familiarly called.

"O, boys, she's got a cent, for mother promised it to her! She isn't a nail-one!" shouted her brother.

Nail-ones belonged to an inferior caste. This class included those who had been about the streets and yards, back of barns and in old corner-lots, picking up nails or cast-away bits of iron. Their currency was the more common. A hard-cash customer was about as common as bobolinks in December.

"Callie, come here and buy some fruit!"

"Don't you want some candy, Callie?"

"Buy a toy, Callie!"

"Flowerth! flowerth!" were the various shouts greeting the cash customer. She was saluted eagerly, as hack-men hail the arrivals in the trains at a city station. Callie made no reply, but stubbed in a demure, dignified way, from table to table, finally halting where children's strongest passion is sure to take them, at the candy table. Here she traded away her cash.

"And wont you try a piece?" said Juggie to Aunt Stanshy, displaying his stock of two pieces of candy. "Try dese goods."

She graciously took the sample.

"How do you sell candy?"

"Cent a stick."

"Well, I'll take it."

"Two cents," said Juggie, prudently charging for the piece given on trial also.

As Aunt Stanshy left this enterprising trader, she heard a vigorous summons:

"Cash! cash!"

At the supper-table that night Charlie asked, "Aunty, what do you suppose we are going to have now in our club? Something at our fair, I mean?"

"A tornado."

"No, a refreshment saloon; and the boys said they knew you would be in every day to buy something."

"O dear!" groaned Aunt Stanshy, inwardly.

"We are going to have ice-cream, too, may be. We couldn't afford it in summer."

"Not in summer? Why, that's the time when people want it most."

"But we make ours out of snow, you know, and could only have it in cold weather."

"Then I hope, for your sake, we may have some snow, and I see that the clouds look like it. But the weather is getting colder nowadays, and if you have your snow, and so can make your ice-cream, it may be so cold that you will have no customers."