to have pancakes for supper--pancakes and maple syrup!"

At this association of ideas Bugsey made a quick move for the
dinner-pail, in which he had a distinct interest. Bugsey was what his
parents called a "quare lad" (his brothers often called him worse
than that), and one way he had of showing his "quareness" was that he
did not even eat like other people. On this particular day the Watson
children had for dinner, among other plainer things, a piece of wild
cranberry pie, with the pits left in, for each child. Patsy's piece
had gone at the first recess; Danny's did not get past the fireguard
around the school; Tammy's disappeared before he had gone a hundred
yards from the house (Tommy was carrying the dinner-pail); but
Bugsey, the "quare lad," did not eat his in school at all, but left
it to eat on the way home.

Now cranberry pie with the pits in is a perishable article, and
should not be left unguarded in this present evil world, where human
nature has its frailties. When Bugsey looked into the pail, he raised
a wail of bereavement, and at the same moment Tommy set out for home
at high speed accelerated no doubt by the proddings of conscience.
Bugsey followed, breathing out slaughter, and even made the murderous
threat of "takin' it out of his hide," which no doubt was only
intended figuratively.

"Come back here, Bugsey Watson!" cried Pearl authoritatively. "What
do yez mane by it? S'posin' he did ate yer pie? It ain't as bad as if
he knocked an eye out of yer. You shouldn't have left it in the pail
to tempt him anyway. If you'd et it when you should ye'd had it and,
anyway, don't be ye wasting yer temper fightin' for things like pie,
that's here to-day and away to-morrow. It's a long way worse for him
that has the mean feelin' than it is for you, so it is." In her
excitement Pearl went back to her Irish brogue. Tommy by this time
was a long way down the road, still making his small legs fly,
thinking that the avenging Bugsey was in pursuit.

So intent were the children on the pie dispute that they did not hear
the approach of a buggy behind them, until Sandy Braden with his
pacing horse drove by. When he saw Pearl he reined in with a sudden
impulse.

"Will you come and ride with me? I'll drive you home," he said,
addressing her. "Bring that little chap with you," he added, noticing
the shortness of Danny's fat legs.

Pearl assented to this, and she and Danny climbed into the
rubber-tired buggy.

They dr