great. She took the shine off
the other play-actors all right. I knew that _National Gazette_ man
didn't know what he was talking about. Mother, let us go and see Josie
right off. She's stopping with her aunt at the Maberly Hotel--I saw it
in the paper this morning. I'm going to tell her she was right and we
were wrong. Josie's beat them all, and I'm going to tell her so!"

When Jack and Jill Took a Hand

_Jack's Side of It_

Jill says I have to begin this story because it was me--I mean it was
I--who made all the trouble in the first place. That is so like Jill.
She is such a good hand at forgetting. Why, it was she who suggested
the plot to me. I should never have thought of it myself--not that
Jill is any smarter than I am, either, but girls are such creatures
for planning up mischief and leading other folks into it and then
laying the blame on them when things go wrong. How could I tell Dick
would act so like a mule? I thought grown-up folks had more sense.
Aunt Tommy was down on me for weeks, while she thought Jill a regular
heroine. But there! Girls don't know anything about being fair, and I
am determined I will never have anything more to do with them and
their love affairs as long as I live. Jill says I will change my mind
when I grow up, but I won't.

Still, Jill is a pretty good sort of girl. I have to scold her
sometimes, but if any other chap tried to I would punch his head for
him.

I suppose it _is_ time I explained who Dick and Aunt Tommy are. Dick
is our minister. He hasn't been it very long. He only came a year ago.
I shall never forget how surprised Jill and I were that first Sunday
we went to church and saw him. We had always thought that ministers
had to be old. All the ministers we knew were. Mr. Grinnell, the one
before Dick came, must have been as old as Methuselah. But Dick was
young--and good-looking. Jill said she thought it a positive sin for a
minister to be so good-looking, it didn't seem Christian; but that was
just because all the ministers we knew happened to be homely so that
it didn't appear natural.

Dick was tall and pale and looked as if he had heaps of brains. He had
thick curly brown hair and big dark blue eyes--Jill said his eyes were
like an archangel's, but how could she tell? She never saw an
archangel. I liked his nose. It was so straight and finished-looking.
Mr. Grinnell had the worst-looking nose you ever saw. Jill and I used
to make poetry about it in chur