though he had said something Uncle Ike
would applaud.

"There, that will do," said Uncle Ike, as he put his hand in the boy's
hair to warm it. "Don't let me ever hear you say a word against sisters
again. You don't know anything about sisters. They are great. Let me
tell you a story. I know a man who is away up in public affairs, at the
head of his profession in his county, and one the world will hear more
about some of these days. He was just such a little shrimp as you are,
when he was a boy. He got out of the high school, and was going to clerk
in a feed store, when his sister took him one side, one Sunday, and told
him she wanted him to go to college. He almost fainted away at the idea.
There wasn't much money in the family to burn on a boy's education, and
he knew it, and he asked where the money was to come from. This little
sister of the poor boy said she would furnish the money. She knew that
he would be one of the great men of the country, if he had a college
education, and it was arranged for him to go to college, this little
sister being his backer financially. She had a musical education, and
began to look for chances to make money. She took scholars in music, and
was so anxious to make money for this brother to blow in on an education
that she fairly forced music into all her pupils, working night and day,
often with her head ready to split open with pain, but every week she
rounded up money enough to send to that brother at college, and for four
years there never was a Monday morning that he did not get a postoffice
order from that sweet girl, and every day a letter of encouragement, and
advice, and when he graduated a pale girl stood below the platform with
bright eyes and a feverish cheek, and when he came down off the
platform with his diploma he grasped her in his arms and said, 'Sister,
darling,' and kissed her in the presence of five thousand people, and
she fainted. She had worked as no man works, for four years, and the
result was a brother, a lawyer, a grand man, who loves that sister as
though she was an angel from heaven. So, confound you, if I ever hear
you say a word against sisters again, I will take you across my knee
and you will think the millennium has come and struck you right on the
pants," and Uncle Ike patted the boy on the cheek, and said they had
better go out and catch a mess of fish.

CHAPTER III.

"Uncle Ike, did you ever take many degrees in secret societies?" asked
th