wn over his eyes, put on a pair of gloves
and entered the hen-house.

The ice had by this time melted from their backs and wings, and those
thirteen geese were the liveliest flock of birds imaginable.

"Thirteen of them. All right!" said Mr. Peck, passing out the last
struggling bird to his son, who clapped it into the coop.

A dollar and thirty cents was handed to Nat by Al's father, with the
cutting remark:

"There's your money, young man! I hope you won't grow up to be as mean
as you bid fair to be now."

Nat accepted the money, considerably shame-faced, and followed the Pecks
back to their place to see them unload the geese; but he was
disappointed, in that they were not unloaded, Al flinging some corn into
the coop, which was allowed to remain in the wagon.

"Aren't you going to put them into the pen again?" inquired Nat, mildly.

"They've never been in a pen, that I know of," replied Mr. Peck, with a
queer smile.

"I don't believe they'd get along very well with any other geese," added
Al, reflecting his father's broad grin.

"Why--" began Nat, at last beginning to believe that there was something
_very_ peculiar about the whole affair.

"Why, it is just here!" explained Al. "They weren't my geese at all,
till I bought them of you. They were a flock of wild ones, that got
belated in the storm last evening, I suppose. I should think you'd have
known them by their call. For once in your life, Nat Bascom, you've
over-reached yourself. I shall clear as much as seventy-five cents on
each of those birds."

Nat made for home at once, followed by shouts of laughter from the
Pecks, father and son. He felt as though everything stable in the world
had been knocked from under him.

Although he never mentioned the matter to his father or mother, the
story reached them through other sources, for it soon spread throughout
the community, and neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bascom had the least sympathy
for him.

All that winter the nickname of "Goose" clung to him, and perhaps the
jeers of his fellows did him some good; at least, it made a lasting
impression on his mind, and when he was tempted to perform a mean act
again, he could not fail to remember how he had once over-reached
himself.

DRAWN INTO THE WHIRLPOOL

(_A Norway Boy's Adventure._)

by DAVID KER.

Under the lee of a small island on the northwest coast of Norway a young
fisher-lad lay sleeping in the boat in whi