of who ran away
to sea and never came back, "foundered or drowndered," she couldn't
remember which. Aunt Prue seized his shoulders and gave him a sound
shake. This was what came of idling over story-books all day long, she
said,--he could just shut up and go and give the pig its supper, and not
let her hear any more trash like that--making them all feel so bad about
nothing.

Charley twisted his shoulder out of her grasp with a scowl, but he took
the pail and went out to the pen. All the time that piggy ate, he was
considering what to do. "I'll tease 'em," he decided, "and tease and
tease, and then they'll let me go."

So he did tease, and plead and expostulate, but it was all in vain.
Grandmother and the aunts could not be reached by any of his entreaties,
and at the end of a week he seemed as far from his desire as ever.

You will wonder, perhaps, that Charley did not run away, as so many boys
do in books, and a few out of them. Somehow he never thought of that. He
was not a hardy, adventurous fellow at all. His desire to go to sea was
a fancy born of foolish reading, and he wanted to have his going made
easy for him.

"I must set to work in another way," he thought at last. "Asking of 'em
aint no use. I must make 'em want to have me go." Then he fell to
thinking how this could be done.

"Aunt Hitty wouldn't hold out long if the others didn't," he thought. "I
could coax her into it as easy as fun. She'll do anything if I kiss and
pet her a bit. Then there's Aunt Greg,--she thinks so much of poetry and
such stuff. I'll hunt up the pieces in the 'Reader' about 'The sea, the
sea, the deep blue sea,' and all that, and learn 'em and say 'em to her,
and I'll tell her about coral groves and palm-trees, and make her think
it's the jimmiest thing going to sail off and visit 'em. Grandmother's
always bothering about my being sick, and afraid of this and afraid of
that; so I'll just _be_ sick--so sick that nothing but a viyage'll cure
me! As for Aunt Prue, 'taint no use trying to impose on _her_. I guess
I'll have to be real hateful and troublesome to Aunt Prue. I'll tease
pussy and slop on the pantry shelves, and track up the floor every time
she mops it, and leave the dipper in the sink, and all the other things
she don't like, and by and by she'll be just glad to see the last of me!
Hi!--that'll fetch 'em all!" He ended his reflections with a chuckle.
Charley wasn't really a bad boy,--not bad through and through, that
i