CHAPTER V

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The boy had grabbed the fishing-rod, so that my rod and my eel went with them.

My! but I was mad, but kind of excited, too, for a man came up from the inside of the canal boat and yelled, and the man on the deck woke up and yelled, and the boy was yelling!

There was a farmer driving along the road and across the bridge and when he saw mules coming, lickity-split, where mules never come,—right up to the bridge,—he yelled too, and licked his horse to get out of the way. The boy, he licked the mules with my rod. He'd thrown my eel back into the water.

He was as cool as could be, and by and by he got the mules calmed down, and one of the men from the boat jumped off and helped him and they got the ropes all straight again and started off. The boy never said a word, except when the man asked him what did it. Then he told him, "The mule didn't like the looks of that baby boy there on the canal bank." The man shook his fist at me, and I called, "Gimme my cap." And the boy said, "Wait till we come back"; and he made an awful face as they went away, turning round and riding backwards to do it.

I knew then that he was the same boy that made a face at me when I was in the train.

Well, I had to tell Aunty Edith, and she looked very severe, and gave me my second-best cap and said, "William, do be careful, this time." But I only told her that the boy threw my cap into the water. I didn't tell that he said he was coming back.

But I talked to Mr. Taylor about it, and he agreed that when I saw the boy again, I'd have to have it out with him, and he'd stand referee to see that there was no unfair advantage took of me or him.

"For," says he, "you can't be called baby darling free and often by them boat boys, and neither can you eel them boat boys and scare their mules. All things being equal, you ask him his intentions next time and come to some mew-tual feeling on the matter, which won't reach the ears of your Aunty Edith. The ears of your Aunty May," say she, "could be reached and enjyed by them fine, if took alone, and without t'other Aunty present."

Well, every day I kept a watch-out for that boy, and for a whole week I didn't see him.

One Monday, Aunty May asked Aunty Edith if I couldn't go down,—it was raining,—if I put on my raincoat and boots, with Mr. Taylor, when he went to the mail, and bring her some stamps and stamped envelopes. Aunty Edith said, "Oh, all right, May, but it seems to me you eat stamps. They disappear so fast." Aunty May laughed, and said,

"Be-that-as-it-may," which is what she always says when she wants to stop discussing, "William goes."

So I got ready, and Mr. Taylor and me started down. It's a mile away.

Mr. Taylor doesn't like umbrellas, neither do I, so, as it was only misting, Aunty May said I needn't.

Just as we got to Rabbit Run Bridge, who came along, with his mules, and the same canal boat, and the same man asleep, under an umbrella this time, but that BOY!

Mr. Taylor says, that the et-i-ket of such things makes him leave me and go sit on the bridge while I had it out. So I went down and said to the boy, "Hey, you, where's my cap?" And he grinned and said, "I give it to your eel. He's a-wearing of it now, and it looks fine on him."

That strikes me so funny that I began to laugh; then I remembered that wasn't what I wanted to do. So I says, "Come on down till I polish you up for what you did to my cap"; and he says, "I'll be down in a minute to fix you for what you done to my mule. I've gotter put him in trousers to-morrow, his legs is so damaged."

Then I began to laugh again, at the thought of a mule in trousers. "Aw, come on down," I said. "You ain't got any trousers for him." "Have, too," he said; "I'm making them spare minutes out of Turkey red. And when I adds brass buttons and pockets I'll put 'em on, the next time he passes your house."

I began to laugh again, and then he jumped down, and before I knew it hit me a punch on the nose. That made me so mad that I hit at him and it struck his leg, and he said, "Ouch," and jumped so that I looked at his leg, and saw it was black and blue already.

"Who did that?" I said.

"Never you mind, baby dear," he said: "come on. If my leg did get catched between the boat and the bank and ground agin a stone this morning, I can still fight an eel-catcher."

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And he hopped up to me on one foot, and I saw he wasn't much bigger than me, maybe eleven or twelve, and he had all he could do to keep from crying because his leg hurt him so; but he was so quick that I just had to dodge to get out of the way.

"Say," I said, after I'd gotten out of his reach, "I don't want to hit you when you're hurt. And anyway," I said, "I don't know that I care about fighting with anybody who can make eels wear caps and mules red trousers. Wait a minute and I'll get a clean rag and some witch-hazel for your leg."

"No, you don't," he says; "I ain't going to be fussed over, but if you gotta pitcher-book, like the one I seen you reading one day, that, an' something to chew'll keep my mind off my leg, and when it's all right again, I'll come past and smash you into bait for eels."

That didn't seem quite what I wanted, but I told Mr. Taylor the boy was hurt and I couldn't fight, and he said "Certainly not—agin reg-u-lations."

Then he said he'd wait for me a minute, and I ran back home, because I knew I'd get there faster than any canal mule, and I bust into the room, and told Aunty May, and first she didn't like my busting in like that, and then she got interested. She gave me a picture-book and a piece of rag, and some witch-hazel in a bottle, and a big piece of cake. When I got out, the boy was just coming up to the fence, and Aunty May wanted to tie up his leg for him, but he wouldn't. So she explained to him that the stuff in the bottle and the rag was for his leg, and he said, "Yes, 'm, thanks," and then she went in the house quick, so's I could speak to him myself. I'd asked her to.

He said, "Well, eel-catcher, this will help me some. And if I pass this way agin, I'll look you up."

"Oh, do," I said.

"Want yer book back?" he calls.

"No," I said, "when you get through with it, give it to the eel."

"No," says he, "he's not fond of reading, but I know an old mushrat that's fond of anything like print. I'll give it to him, so any time you see him reading it by moonlight, with his spectacles on, you'll know it's my friend."

"Oh, come back soon," I called, "and tell me more about it"; for he was getting slowly and slowly away from me.

"I will," he shouted, "if I don't make a mistake and swallow the witch-hazel."

CHAPTER VON THE DELAWARE

I thought I'd never get tired of having a river at our back door, but one day I nearly hated the Delaware.

This is how it happened: Aunty Edith had a rowboat with a place in the stern where you could fix a big sketching-umbrella, and go sketching without getting too sunburnt; and when I was very good, 'specially good, I could go with her.

When I was just ordinary good, and Aunty Edith wasn't using the boat, Aunty May and I used to borrow it and play "Robinson Crusoe," and Aunty May made the funniest "Man Friday" you ever saw. She would pretend not to know any language but "glub-glub," and so I had to teach her the names of things and she would shake all her hair down and dance a war-dance, when I got her to understand. This was when we'd reached our Island. There was one across the river from us, and on a corner of it we used to picnic and play.

Mr. Turner's children all were girls, and they went to school, or had music-lessons, or something, so I only had them once in a while to play with, and then they always wanted to play fairy-tales, and make me the Prince. I hate Princes because they're always bothering about finding some Princess. I'd rather have been an Ogre or a Dwarf or a Bad Giant. They had some fun. But the girls always got their Indian Boy to be those. He was a big boy from the Carlisle Indian School, who came in the summer to help about the house and the grounds, and he was great fun. He showed me how to make bows and arrows, and taught me how to swim and things like that, and how to push off a canoe. But mostly Aunty May was the one I had to play with right on the spot, and just when you'd made up your mind that she was a grown-up and wouldn't do it, she'd begin some funny thing, and she was almost as good as a real boy.

Well, Mr. Turner had a man visiting him, a painting-man, and he came down to see Aunty Edith, and they put their heads on one side and screwed up their eyes, and looked at paintings, and had tea, and talked about art so long that Aunty May and I couldn't be quiet any longer, but just had to go down into the garden and play Wild Men of Borneo. That means taking a beanpole and yelling and dancing and trying to see who can vault and jump the farthest with the pole, and when you win you say, "Glug-Glug."

We were right in the middle of this, and Aunty May was a little red-faced, and her hair was kind of wild, when we heard somebody laugh, and there was the painter-man down by the river, laughing as hard as he could laugh; and Aunty Edith trying to look severe at Aunty May and not able to, on account of her looking so comical. She had a black smudge from the end of the beanpole, which had been in a bonfire, across her forehead. You see she had just jumped the farthest, and was hollering, "Glug-Glug."

Aunty May laughed pretty hard, too, and we all laughed then, and Aunty May went up to the house to turn into a clean-faced grown-up again, and Aunty Edith unlocked the boat and handed the big umbrella to the man and told him to use the boat as often and as long as he liked. He put his paint-box and sketch-block in, and got in himself, and I stood looking at him, wishing he'd ask me—when he did.

"Want to come, young man?" he said, and I said, "Yes, I'll take my book and my fish-line and be very quiet. May I, Aunty Edith?"

Aunty Edith said, kind of doubtful, "I'm not going, William. Maybe you'd better not."

Well, I guess I looked awful sorry at that, for the man said, his name was Mr. Garry Louden,—"Oh, let him come, Edith, I'll look after him"; and Aunty Edith said, "But you're such an absent-minded beggar, Garry, and this is Burt's most precious charge."

"Oh, he'll be all right," Mr. Garry said; "I'll bring him home right as a trivet. Hop in, son."

So I jumped in and waved good-bye to Aunty Edith, and we started up the river.

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"What's an absent-minded beggar?" I asked Mr. Garry, and he said, "Oh, a fellow like me, who's always got his head full of pictures and things, and forgets what he's at."

"Then you don't really beg for anything, do you?" I said.

"Lord, no," he said, "except when I'm out with talkative young sports, and then I beg them to keep quiet."

So I took my fish-line and sat still as a mouse, while he looked up and down the river, and whistled to himself—when he got a good idea, I guess, for after he'd whistled some, he'd let the boat drift and make marks in his sketch-book. He was a nice man, but not used to little boys, I think, for he used awful big words, and didn't answer questions like Aunties and Uncles do.

By and by I told him about the Island, and he said, "Right you are, young Soc-ra-tees," and we landed there, and he kept saying, "Ripping," "Splendid," and things like that, and by and by he fished out some sandwiches and sweet chocolate from his pocket, and gave me some, and told me to stay there while he rowed around and explored farther up the side of the Island. I said, "All right," for with things to eat, and a nice brook, and a shady place, and a book, no boy need have any trouble finding things to do to keep himself amused. And I didn't.

I made a ship, and loaded it, and I made a fort on the other side of the brook, and when the ship came near the fort, the men from the fort came out and had a fight and sank her. Then when I got tired of that I read my book, and I read all I wanted to, and still Mr. Garry didn't come back. I could hear voices on the river, and once in a while a canoe shot past, but none of them was Mr. Garry, or Aunty Edith's rowboat.

By and by they stopped coming past and then I got up and went along the bank and looked for him. I could see, way across the river, a little white speck, shining through the trees, which I knew was our house.

My! didn't I want to be there! I didn't have any matches, of course. I'm not allowed to carry them. I couldn't make a fire, or anything, though it began to get dusky, and still Mr. Garry didn't come.

Then, suddenly, I remembered that he was an absent-minded beggar who forgot things, and maybe he'd forgot me. That made me feel awfully queer and lumpy inside me, and besides I was getting tired.

Nobody lived on that Island, except maybe some ground-hogs and squirrels and snakes, and—it wasn't any place for a boy who didn't have any food or tent or fire.

First thing I knew, when that struck me, I heard myself bawl—right out, "Oh, Aunty May—COME! Oh, Aunty May!" and then I was really frightened, for it sounded so loud, and so scared, and so babyish.

I kept still for a minute, and swallowed hard and then I yelled, "Hey! Hey!" out loud, without crying—hoping somebody would hear me. I did it a great many times, but nobody answered. Then I remembered that the boys were always landing here and hollering and shouting in fun, and nobody would pay any attention to it.

I tried to remember what Uncle Burt'd do if he was caught like this, and little like me. I thought maybe he'd take off his shirt and wave it, but then I remembered it'd be too dark to see. But anyway I guessed I'd better do something, so I took off my blouse, and put my sweater on, and tied my blouse to a tree, and it waved, quite fine, for there was a little breeze coming up. I tried rubbing sticks together for a light, but whoever made up that plan must have had stronger arms and hands than I had, for I rubbed till my arms ached so that I cried some, but I didn't get a single spark of light.

By this time it was very dark, and I was so hoarse with hollering, and so aching in my arms with rubbing sticks, and my legs hurt so with running up and down trying to see a boat or something, that I just dumped myself down on the grass and cried—and—I guess I—fell asleep. For the next thing I knew I heard some one calling my name, kind of loud, and kind of scared, "Billy, Billy, darling, are you there?" It was Aunty May in a canoe. I tried to call to her, but I was so hoarse and tired, I just made a kind of noise in my throat.

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Then I was so afraid she'd paddle away that I let out the finest yell you ever heard, and Aunty May called out, "Hey, Robinson Crusoe. Here's your Man Friday"; and she slid the canoe up to the bank, and I fell in so stiff, and she hugged me so hard, that it's a wonder we didn't upset.

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Usually I don't like hugging, but this time it was all right.

Then Aunty May told me that she had begun to get worried and so had Aunty Edith, knowing that Mr. Garry was an absent-minded beggar. Aunty Edith had gone up to Mr. Turner's to find if he was home, but Aunty May had insisted on going out in the canoe, though Mr. Taylor didn't like her to alone, and Mr. Taylor had gone down the towpath, toward the village, looking for us. Well, wasn't Aunty May mad when she found out how long I'd been alone and how badly I'd wanted her. She just paddled as fast as she could, and all the time pretended that we were wild savages who would catch Mr. Garry and put him on a desert island, just to see how he'd like it.

As we got nearer our house there were lights along the river-bank, and we called and a big boat came up to us, and in it was Mr. Garry, with a very white face, and Mr. Turner and Aunty Edith, and she was crying so hard that she couldn't see me at first.

When Aunty May said, "Don't cry, Edith, he's here," and handed me over, she gave me such a hard squeeze that I couldn't speak for a minute.

Mr. Garry all the time kept saying, "Say, old chap, I'm sorry, but I am such an absent-minded beggar." Aunty May said, "Yes, but you'll never have a chance to get absent-minded with this boy again."

He looked terribly sorry, and begged my pardon again, and I told him, "It was all right, only I didn't care to play Robinson Crusoe so truthfully—at night."

They hurried me up to the house and gave me warm things to eat and drink, and let me stay up longer than usual.

Aunty May wouldn't let Mr. Garry touch me or help her at all, and even Aunty Edith wouldn't hardly speak to him, till they found I was all right and not hurt any, except my blouse, which was left on the Island.

Mr. Garry gave me his own silver pen-knife, before he went away, so that I would "nevermore defenseless be," as he said, and we were quite friendly. But after he had gone, I heard Aunty May say that "Never would that absent-minded beggar take her boy away again"; and Aunty Edith said, "He's Burt's boy, not yours."

Aunty May didn't say anything, so I called out, "I'm your boy, too, Aunty May. Uncle Burt said so, and I'll never, never go out with an absent-minded beggar on the river again."

And I never have.

CHAPTER VIGEORGE

For a while, I did have a real boy to play with, right in the house. It happened this way:—

Martha, who is Aunty Edith's colored washerwoman in the city, had a boy called George, who used to bring the clothes home. He was a little older than me—twelve years old—and he was always smiling, and his teeth were white and his eyes shiny. And when his mother wrote Aunty Edith that he was poorly, Aunty Edith had him sent down for a week—on trial, to stay in the attic above my room, and do the dishes for the Aunties, and run errands. He was to stay longer, if it was all right.

I wish it had been, for George was awful funny. He was very obliging, too, and I liked him. So did Aunty May, for he remembered all the stories his teachers had told him in school, and he would tell them to Aunty May and me, when we sat down under the willow trees, and we just loved it.

What Aunty Edith didn't love was what he did with the green paint. Aunty Edith had a lot left over in a pot after the kitchen was painted, and she thought it would be nice to paint the chairs and tables that we used out of doors.

We used to have breakfast and lunch, and even dinner, out in the little grapevine-covered back porch, which had a cement floor, level with the ground.

So just to keep George happy, Aunty Edith gave him that to do. He commenced it while Aunty May and I were doing lessons, and we could hear Aunty Edith explaining—Aunty Edith always does the explaining—and George all the time saying, "Yas, 'm, yas, 'm, Miss Edith." And by and by Aunty Edith came in and we could hear George whistling and singing. George did sing awful loud, and funny songs, so you'd have to stop and listen.

This morning he kept singing something about a man named "Sylvester," and he kept singing out the same thing over and over again, till Aunty May said, "Oh, dear, I can't hear myself speak. Edith, will you quiet the blackbird?" And Aunty Edith called to George not to sing so loud, and he said, "Yas, 'm, Miss Edith"; and the next minute it began louder than ever.

Then Aunty Edith went downstairs to tell him to take his work farther away from the house.

She hadn't been gone a minute till we heard her say, "Oh, good gracious, what shall I do? Come here, George, and see if you can take it off." George kept saying, "Yas, 'm, Miss Edith, yas, 'm"; and Aunty Edith was being so very spluttery, that Aunty May and I leaned out the window, and then we jerked our heads in and Aunty May said, "Don't you dare laugh out loud, Billy."

Then we looked again, and jerked our heads inside the window every time we felt the laugh coming on, which was pretty often, for you see George had put the paint-can, a small one, right on the doorsill, and Aunty Edith had put her foot in it, and it had caught.

There was Aunty Edith holding on to the grape-arbor while George pulled at the can, and the paint flowing around pretty free. Well, George couldn't pull it off, and finally he had to take a can-opener and cut Aunty Edith's foot out, just as though she were salmon, or something.

When we got to that part, Aunty May and I forgot ourselves and laughed out loud, and then Aunty Edith looked at us, and looked at her foot, and at George's black face all daubed with green paint, and his clothes, too, as he carefully cut her out, and she laughed, too. But it spoiled her shoe, and it took several days to wear the green off George.

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That was the too bad part of it. George was so fine for singing and telling stories and he just couldn't remember to do anything else.

When he went for the mail and the groceries, unless I went with him, he'd forget everything, and come home just as smiling as ever.

And he was brave, too, for he used to chase the village boys when they ran after him and called names, and besides that he and I built a lovely Filipino house up in the biggest willow tree, and had lots of fun, escaping from two boys at the farm across Rabbit Run Bridge, who chased us and tried to catch us. We got up in our tree-house and shot at them with bows and arrows, and they couldn't reach us. I liked having George. If he'd only stayed funny, without getting dangerous. But George got dangerous.

It was this way: George and the two boys on the farm, Samuel and Charlie Crosscup, were having a talk on the middle of Rabbit Run Bridge, about fire engines. Samuel said the East Penniwell fire engine could get up steam and run to a fire, with Sol Achers's old white horse hitched to her, quicker than a New York fire engine could. George and me said it couldn't. He said, "It could, because why? The East Penniwell horse and engine were used to the roads and the New York horses and engine would have to be showed."

I couldn't think of anything to say, but George said, "No, sah. Dat ain't noways so. For de New York fire engines and horses is so trained that they goes over any road and anywhere according as the Fire Chief he directs, and it doan mek no difference whether they've been up dataways befo' or not They jist naturally eats up all distances."

Well, that made the Crosscup boys mad, and they kept telling all about the East Penniwell engine house, and my! it must be a lovely place, if all they say is true. George he told them then about the New York engine houses, and my! they must be splendid if George really knew. He said he did. He said his mother's cousin washed for three firemen and she'd oughter know. I guess she ought to, but George did remember so much about those things, and forgot so quick about others, that sometimes I really didn't know what to be sure about.

Well, it began to rain, and George was going to take me home, when one of the boys said, "Aw, don't go home, yet. Come on into the old barn and let's play knife until the rain stops."

I guessed we'd ought to go home right away with the bundles and change, but George said, "On no account can I git you wet. Miss Edith wouldn't stand for that nohow." So I went with him. And we played knife on the floor. It was a big empty barn. That is there weren't any cattle in it, just hay.

It stood a long way from the house, and on a little hill. By and by the thunder and lightning got quieter, but the rain made it dark, and I said, "Oh, George, let's go. It's too dark to see in here anyway." But George wouldn't go until he had finished his game, and when the other boys said, "It's too dark to play knife any more," George said, "Let's play robber's cave. I got something in my pocket will make it light." He took out a box of matches and a candle-end, and said, "Let's stick it up yere, and then play robbers. This'll be the den"; and he put the candle into the neck of an old bottle.

I said, "Oh, George, Aunty Edith doesn't let you have matches." George said, "Look yere, these matches was give me to-day, and this ain't Miss Edith's barn. If these young gemmun is willing to play in their father's barn with a candle, you ain't got no call to say anything, has yer?" And the boys said, "Aw, it's all right. Come on. William ain't yer boss. He's nothing but a kid anyway."

Well, that made me mad, and I wouldn't play robbers with them, and I slid down to the barn floor, and went to the door, and looked out to see if it was getting any lighter. But George, he put on a terrible look, and began to say, "I'm the King of the Robbers, who's this yere a-peekin' and a-spyin' in my den?" Then Sam called out, "It's me. I'm the King of the Pirates, and I've come to take ye bound hand and foot to my ship. Stand by, men!" "Men" was his brother Charlie, and they made a dash at George. He danced and flew at them with a stick and called to me to come and be his man and help him fight 'em off.

I was just running to do it, for it looked like pretty good fun, and the rain was pretty hard, when somebody knocked the bottle with their foot, and over it went into a heap of straw, and before the boys could race back and put it out, the hay was on fire.

Oh, dear! I hope I never see anything like that again. We boys were so scared at first, we couldn't move, and then, with a yell, the Crosscup boys ran to tell their father, with me and George after them.

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We only ran a little ways toward the other barn, and then we found an old bucket, and George yelled to me to get a bit of rope, and we lowered it into the canal and ran back to throw the water on the fire. But it was too little, and the fire was too big.

Farmer Crosscup came running with his hired man, and we all worked with hose and everything, but the barn burned, all but the north wall, and so fast that though George and I ran and ran for help, and though Mrs. Crosscup telephoned to town for engines, it was through burning before they got up.

After this, George had to go. Aunty Edith got him sent to a place for colored children, where he could have fresh air, and some one to look after him, but he had to go away from East Penniwell. The farmers said he was "dangerous." I was sorry and Aunty May was sorry, too, but it couldn't be helped. George was sorry, too, but at the last minute he leaned from the wagon and whispered to me, "Anyway, I done proved dat dere old fire engine wuz too slow."

CHAPTER VIILEFT ALONE

After George went away, it seemed very quiet on the towpath. It grew warmer and warmer, and the cherries got ripe and were picked, and I climbed trees and played more, and had fewer lessons, because it was so hot, and the little Turner girls came down to play with me sometimes, because school was out. I went up and played with them sometimes, but not often unless the launch came down, because it was a long way to walk in the hot sun.

Mr. Taylor and me used to sit on his back porch, where it was cool, and tell one another stories.

He told me some fine ones about the war, and when he was a boy. More things seemed to happen to boys then than they do now, and I told him so, and he laughed and said that was only because he was seventy-three and remembered about them. He said that when I was seventy-three, "some little feller'll think the same thing when you tell him about the fust airship and things like that."

I laughed at me ever being seventy-three, but I suppose I will some day. The only fun we had before the letter came was early that very morning, when Aunty May was sitting reading some clippings her editor had sent her, with her back to the little cupboard I told about, that was made out of an old window.

I came down the stairs from my room and stood looking at her, wishing she'd look up so I could interrupt. But she didn't and I stood there just as quiet for a minute, and wondering why I suddenly thought about the pictures in my book on India. Then I heard a little rustle, and I knew. Just above Aunty May's head, uncoiling itself from round a pile of plates in the corner, was a big black and yellow snake.

I called out, "Hey, Aunty May! Quick! There's a snake behind you!" And she looked up and said, "Billy, I'm not in the mood for playing."

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I said, "Oh, Aunty, I'm not fooling. Quick, or it will land on your head"; and she turned round and looked right at the snake and it looked at her, and Aunty May gave a scream, and jumped away, and the snake dropped down on the floor and commenced to wiggle behind the couch.

Then I tell you there was some fun. Aunty Edith came down just as Aunty May got a hatchet and made a chop at the snake, but she never touched it, and Aunty Edith wouldn't let me go behind the couch after him.

Mr. Taylor, who was coming along the towpath from the village (he brought us the mail every morning), came down and asked, "What's up, young feller? I heerd the wimminfolk screeching. What ye been up to?"

I told him I hadn't done anything. It was a snake. Then Mr. Taylor and me pulled out the couch, but he wasn't there. We poked sticks behind the pantry, but couldn't find him.

There was a big hole in the cement there, and Mr. Taylor said, "Sho, the poor snake was more frightened than ye was, Miss May, and it's likely he's down the river-bank by now." Then Aunty May and me told him how big it was and what color, and he said, "I knew a couple of wimmin kept a milk snake in their dairy for a pet. Maybe this feller wants pettin'." Aunty May said he'd never get it from her, and she took a piece of tin and a hammer and tacks and went to close up the hole, but Mr. Taylor said, "Wait a minute, Miss May"; and he whispered to her, "Stand by a minute. There's a letter here from the War Department to Miss Edith, and I'm doubting it's being the best of news."

Well, poor Aunty May turned so white and sat down so quickly with her face in her hands, that Aunty Edith, who came in the room just then from putting the axe away in the shed, said, "Why, May, did the snake frighten you as much as that?" Aunty May didn't answer. She just clutched Mr. Taylor and said, "Where is it?" Then Mr. Taylor looked at her and at Aunt Edith, and said "Sho" once or twice, and then he pulled out of his pocket a long envelope, and put it in Aunty Edith's hands.

She sat down very quick, and tried to open it, but her hands shook so that she couldn't. Aunty May took it from her and tore it open, and they both leaned over and read it. Then Aunty Edith cried so for a while she couldn't tell us anything, but at last Aunty May took my hand and we went out on the porch, and she told us that Uncle Burt had got hurt in a little fight—not a real battle, a "skirmish" with some natives, and he was to be sent home on sick-leave.

Then she and Mr. Taylor talked about what the letter said, and he shook his head, and told her it looked like a bad job to him. Aunty May told me to go over and sit with Mr. Taylor while she talked with Aunty Edith.

Mr. Taylor and me sat there, not very happy, because I was thinking of Uncle Burt, and somehow I couldn't make him sick or hurt, he was so big and so very strong.

I said that to Mr. Taylor, and he said, "Them there guns don't care how big and strong a man is, they picks 'em down. They're cruel things, boy, firearms is. Don't you ever go a-monkeying with them, mind that." I said I wouldn't.

We sat there so quiet that we could hear the Aunties talking, and Aunty Edith crying every now and then, in the house. Aunty May wasn't crying, but she seemed quite angry about something. I could hear her say, "You shall take it, Edith, and you shall do as I say, or I'll throw it into the canal." Then again, "What is the money to me if—" And then Aunty May began to cry and Aunty Edith began to be soothing to her, and the more she soothed the harder Aunty May cried, till I heard Aunty Edith say, "All right, May, dear. I promise I'll do it, if you'll only stop crying."

Aunty May stopped right away, and presently she came out, and her eyes were red, but her mouth was smiling, like it always does when she gets what she wants.

She came and sat down by Mr. Taylor and me, while Aunty Edith went up to write out telegrams and letters, and told me that Aunty Edith was going out to bring Uncle Burt home, and that she was going with her as far as San Francisco; that while they were gone I was to stay at the Turners', for she thought they would look after me for her, and would I be a good boy until she came back?

I promised I would, but, oh, I felt awful, and I begged her to take me with her, but she said she couldn't because Aunty Edith was so tired and sorry, and she would have to look after her all the time, and I must stay at home and be good and wait. She would come back for me, in a little while, and we'd wait together for Uncle Burt.

So as long as Mr. Taylor sat there looking at me with his winky blue eyes, I didn't dare howl or anything, but my! I did feel like it. So I just said, "Yes, 'm, Aunty May, I'll be good." She kissed me right before him. It was a little mean of her, but he looked the other way and said, "Shoo, Teddy."

Then Aunty May said, "There isn't a minute to be lost, Billy, so come in and pack your box, while I go across to the farmhouse and call the Turners up on the 'phone."

I went into the house, where Aunty Edith was very quiet and packing very hard; and I packed the big suitcase with some of my things, for Aunty Edith said I could always get in the house and get the rest of them any time.

Presently Aunty May came back and said, "It's all right. They are dears. They are coming down for Billy, right away, and they'll take you and me to the train. Do you think you can do it, Edith? We've just an hour." Aunty Edith said, "Of course I can."

And then you never saw such a packing time. It made me so dizzy watching those two Aunties fly around, that presently I went outside, and sat with Mr. Taylor, who was on the front step, "Waiting orders," he said; and didn't we just get them, though!

When Aunty Edith called, "Billy, the tags, please," didn't I just run! and when Aunty May said, "Mr. Taylor, will you please help me with this window?" he jumped around as though he was seventeen instead of seventy-three.

By and by the launch came down, but a little late, so it was decided that I was to wait with Mr. Taylor until they took the Aunties to the train; and they'd get me on the way back.

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After a few minutes the trunks were in the launch, the house was locked and Mr. Taylor had the key. The Aunties kissed me good-bye, and Aunty Edith promised to tell Uncle Burt I was a good boy, and Aunty May said she'd come back for me as soon as she could—and they shook hands with Mr. Taylor and he said, "Sho, I gotter feed them Teddy-cats," and went down the steps. Then they got into the launch and went off, and I waved at them as long as I could see them; and then I sat down by the canal bank and felt as if I couldn't bear it, for it wasn't till then I believed they had really gone away and left me all alone.

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CHAPTER VIIIAT TURNERS'

Up at Turners' it was nice. They had a big stone house with lots of room in it, and the girls, Charlotte and Grace, were nice to play with, and Mrs. Turner always seemed to know what a boy wanted. She did pat me on the head and call me "pigeon" sometimes, but then, she did that to Mr. Turner, too, so I didn't mind.

At first I thought it was going to be so nice, that I'd forget about everything till Aunty May came back, but by and by, though they were nice as nice can be, I began to miss Aunty May till it hurt like a toothache.

I missed Aunty Edith, too, but Aunty May and I had played most together, and next to Uncle Burt, I loved her best.

The Turners had an old ruined mill on their grounds, and we children used to hang our bathing-suits in there and use it to dress in when we went swimming in the creek.

It was very old, and all the machinery, the wheels and things, were made of wood. Up in the top there was a nice big loft, with a wide window, where nobody ever went. When I found this out, I took a broom up there and swept it by the window, and got an old chair, and one of the old barrels for a table, and when I didn't want to play with Charlotte and Grace, or when it rained, I used to get a piece of bread or cake, or an apple, and go off there, all by myself. Sometimes I read, sometimes I wrote books and drew, and sometimes I just sat and thought about Uncle Burt and Aunty May, and Aunty Edith. And it got nearer and nearer the time for Aunty May to come back.

The very day that she was to come home, I was doing this, thinking about her, I mean—a little harder than usual, because Mr. Turner had told me at breakfast that after all Aunty May wouldn't be back till to-morrow, when I heard somebody else breathing in the room. I turned around, and there was Henry, the Indian boy from the Carlisle School, sitting crouched on the floor.

He was a great big boy, fifteen or sixteen, and he helped with the work in the house in the summertime. Henry was always nice to us children, and we liked him a great deal.

I said "Hullo, Henry, what are you doing in my library?" And he showed all his teeth at me and said he was doing the same that I was doing there; he had come up to be sad and alone. Then I told him all about Aunty May, and he was sorry for me, and he told me about the school, and the teachers, and football, and his people, and I was sorry for him.

Then he told me that when he got very sorry about everything, sometimes, he just dressed himself and got out of his bed at night and walked and walked until he got tired, and then came back and slept.

He told me how lovely everything looked in the country, early in the morning, and I told him I'd like to do that, too, some morning, but how did he get up without waking people? Then he showed me how he could move in his stocking feet and no one could hear him. And it was true. If I sat with my back to Henry I would still think he was sitting back of me, when he was over by the door, really. So I practiced that, too. "Playing Indian," he called it; and he promised next time he had that feeling, he'd throw some gravel at my window, and I could come down.

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