here comes Dedy Roberts; does my little love know Dedy?"

"Yes'm, I went to see her once; she lives in a dreadful _ragged_
house!"

"Well, you two little lammies can sit right down here and pick
flowers, and if you find a strawberry I'll give you a cent."

"As if we was babies," thought the little girls, for they were wise
enough to know that strawberries were gone long ago.

"I don't like her," said Prudy to Dedy, when Ruth had turned away;
"she calls me names all the whole time. I guess she don't know my name
is Prudy."

"I wouldn't let her," said Dedy. "What did she call you?"

"O, monkeys, and lammies, and pinkies, and things. Don't you s'pose
she's 'most an _April fool_?"

After watching Prudy to the child's vexation for about two hours, Ruth
forgot all about her, and it so happened that the little thing strayed
off with Horace and his friend Gilbert, whom he called "Grasshopper,"
to a little clearing in the wood.

It is a sad fact that "Grasshopper" had a bunch of matches in his
pocket, and the boys meant to build a fire. Horace gathered the dry
sticks and crossed them, so all Grasshopper had to do was to strike a
match, and the fire was soon crackling briskly.

"How it pops!" said Prudy, "just like corn."

"I reckon this is _popple_ wood," said Horace, "and they call it so
because it pops in the fire."

Prudy did not doubt it. She never doubted any thing Horace said. She
stood looking on, with dumb surprise, as he took out of the inside
pocket of his raglan three small fishes.

"Now," said he, "if we can cook these for our supper, won't we go
a-flyin'?"

"Be they minnies?" asked Prudy. "O, I know; it's mack fishes!"

"She means _mackerel_, you see," said Horace, with a wise look at
Grasshopper. "No, Prudy, these are chubbs, nice chubbs, too; I caught
'em myself."

How to cook a fish, Horace had no idea, but he was not a boy to give
up at trifles.

"If I put 'em into the fire they'll burn up," said he; "but if I hold
'em over the fire they'll cook;--now won't they?"

"Your hand will cook, too, I guess," said lazy Grasshopper, sitting
down and looking on.

Horace said no more, but went quietly to work and whittled some long
splinters, on which he stuck the fish and set them to roasting. True,
they got badly scorched and dreadfully smoked, but that was not all
that happened. A spark flying out caught Prudy's gingham dress, and
set it in flames in a second.

Whether the boys would have known