n the corner where it stood, so they simply laid the
cover on top and threw a piece of sacking carelessly over it. The whole
performance had been punctuated with such hysterical laughter from
Kathleen that she was too weak to be of any real use,--she simply aided
and abetted the chief conspirator. The night was not as other nights.
The girls kept waking up to laugh a little, then they went to sleep, and
waked again, and laughed again, and so on. Nancy composed several
letters to her Cousin Ann dated from Beulah and explaining the sad
accident that had occurred. As she concocted these documents between her
naps she could never remember in her whole life any such night of mirth
and minstrelsy, and not one pang of conscience interfered, to cloud the
present joy nor dim that anticipation which is even greater.

Nancy was downstairs early next morning and managed to be the one to
greet the china-packers. "We filled one barrel last evening," she
explained to them. "Will you please head that up before you begin work?"
which one of the men obligingly did.

"We'll mark all this stuff and take it down to the station this
afternoon," said the head packer to Mrs. Carey.

"Be careful with it, won't you?" she begged. "We are very fond of our
glass and china, our clocks and all our little treasures."

"You won't have any breakage so long as you deal with James Perkins &
Co.!" said the packer.

Nancy went back into the room for a moment to speak with the skilful,
virtuous J.P. & Co. "There's no need to use any care with that corner
barrel," she said carelessly. "It has nothing of value in it!"

James Perkins went home in the middle of the afternoon and left his son
to finish the work, and the son tagged and labelled and painted with all
his might. The Dirty Boy barrel in the corner, being separated from the
others, looked to him especially important, so he gave particular
attention to that; pasted on it one label marked "Fragile," one "This
Side Up," two "Glass with Care," and finding several "Perishables" in
his pocket tied on a few of those, and removed the entire lot of boxes,
crates, and barrels to the freight depot.

The man who put the articles in the car was much interested in the Dirty
Boy barrel. "You'd ought to have walked to Greentown and carried that
one in your arms," he jeered. "What is the precious thing, anyway?"

"Don't you mind what it is," responded young Perkins. "Jest you keep
everybody 'n' everything from