to tremble and shake, and then they pulled
out behind the Belding car. There was a lot of noise, and laughter, and
fun; but nobody seemed so hilarious as Clara Hargrew and the Lockwood
twins.

"Can't you keep your eyes off Purt, Bobby?" demanded the girl sitting
next to the Sweet boy. "What's the matter with him?"

"No--nothing!" chortled Bobby, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth.

But she was watching that red thread shooting down to the wheel and
winding around and around the box, faster and faster as the big machine
got under way. By the time the auto turned into Market Street a great
ball of the red worsted, or whatever it was, had formed on the inside of
the wheel, and the perfectly unconscious Prettyman Sweet was fast losing
his beautiful crimson sash.

The knitted part of the sash overlaid a belt of canvas which really did
the service of holding up the exquisite's trousers. But fast, fast
indeed, the red thread was running out.

Others saw the unraveling yarn, and joined Bobby and the twins in
hilarious laughter. Then a man walking on the sidewalk espied the
growing ball of thread on the wheel and followed the strand to its
source. His happy chortles attracted the attention of other pedestrians,
and soon the big automobile was being accompanied by a chorus of shouts
from small boys in the streets, and laughter from an ever-increasing
number of bystanders.

"What do you suppose is the matter with all these people?" demanded the
unconscious Purt. "I never did see the like. Weally! It's too
widiculous."

"That's what it is!" laughed Bobby.

"Why!" exclaimed Purt, "they weally seem to see something about us to
laugh at! What can it be?"

"Must be you, Purt," said one of the boys.

"Widiculous! There is nothing about me to laugh at, dear boy."

"Huh!" grunted his schoolmate. "You're one big laugh all the time,
Pretty, only you don't know it!"

The way to the farm where the young people were bound was out Market
Street to the east, and then through the winding road which bisected
Robinson's Woods and up into the hills. Mr. Sitz was a Swiss, and had
been used to hilly farms in his youth; therefore the "up hill and down
dale" nature of his farming land near Centerport did not trouble him in
the least. He and Otto, his son, and the hands he hired, made good crops
upon the hilly farm, and the Sitzes were becoming well to do.

In the front auto Laura was speaking about Eve Sitz.

"She's such a big,