ng, and it's all boxed up like a
chicken-coop. You can see the statue right between the slats. And, oh,
auntie! Archie made such a funny joke. Will had just asked Eunice why it
would be the highest statue in the world, but she knew the
answer--'cause it's Myles above the sea, of course. Then Archie stooped
over and poked a stick through the slats, and said: 'Let's tickle his
feet and see if he smiles.' Wasn't that good?"

"I don't see a bit of sense to it," declared Edna, "and I didn't then.
Eunice and Cricket just laughed and laughed, mamma. Of _course_ a statue
couldn't smile."

"Edna, you wouldn't see a joke if one walked up and _bit_ you," said
Eunice. "Archie said: 'Let's tickle his feet and see if he's-Myles.'
_Don't_ you see?"

"If he's Myles. If he smiles. Oh, _yes_!" cried Edna, looking really
excited. "I see! you can take it in two ways."

"Edna, it's easy to see your great-grandfather was a Scotchman," said
Mrs. Somers, when she could speak for laughing at her very practical
little daughter.

"Why, I don't see what that has to do with it. People laugh at such
silly things, mamma. Eunice and Cricket just double up over some things
that are too stupid for anything."

"That's your misfortune, dear. If there was a School of Jokes I should
certainly send you to it."

"Well, for instance," went on Edna, "I'll leave it to Hilda if this
wasn't silly. That day when we all walked over to Captain's Hill, we all
sat down on some stones to rest. Nobody happened to be saying anything
just then, and Cricket began to sing. Archie listened a moment, then he
jumped up and started off on a run, as fast as he could go, all around
the top of the hill, and came back all puffing and panting, and he said:
'Cricket, I've run all around the hill, and I can't catch that tune.'
The girls thought it was awfully funny; what, do _you_ think it was
funny, too?" for Hilda went off in a peal of laughter, as well as
auntie.

"Of course," went on Edna, "he couldn't tell the tune if he didn't stay
and listen to it; and, perhaps, he wouldn't have known then," she added,
thoughtfully.

Cricket grew very red, as she always did when any slighting allusion was
made to her singing.

"Archie is a very funny boy, _I_ think," she remarked quickly, to turn
the attention of the others from this sore subject. "He isn't as nice as
Will, but he's generally funnier. He gets so mad when Edna says, 'What's
the sense to that?' when he makes a joke."