d off the class-list, and, much to his disgust, George Dawkins
found himself playing second fiddle to Young Stupid.

XVII.

BEN'S PRACTICAL JOKE.

Mrs. Mudge was in the back room, bending over a tub. It was washing-day,
and she was particularly busy. She was a driving, bustling woman, and,
whatever might be her faults of temper, she was at least industrious and
energetic. Had Mr. Mudge been equally so, they would have been better
off in a worldly point of view. But her husband was constitutionally
lazy, and was never disposed to do more than was needful.

Mrs. Mudge was in a bad humor that morning. One of the cows had got
into the garden through a gap in the fence, and made sad havoc among the
cabbages. Now if Mrs. Mudge had a weakness, it was for cabbages. She
was excessively fond of them, and had persuaded her husband to set out
a large number of plants from which she expected a large crop. They were
planted in one corner of the garden, adjoining a piece of land, which,
since mowing, had been used for pasturing the cows. There was a weak
place in the fence separating the two inclosures, and this Mrs. Mudge
had requested her husband to attend to. He readily promised this, and
Mrs. Mudge supposed it done, until that same morning, her sharp eyes had
detected old Brindle munching the treasured cabbages with a provoking
air of enjoyment. The angry lady seized a broom, and repaired quickly to
the scene of devastation. Brindle scented the danger from afar, and beat
a disorderly retreat, trampling down the cabbages which she had hitherto
spared. Leaping over the broken fence, she had just cleared the gap as
the broom-handle, missing her, came forcibly down upon the rail, and was
snapped in sunder by the blow.

Here was a new vexation. Brindle had not only escaped scot-free, but the
broom, a new one, bought only the week before, was broken.

"It's a plaguy shame," said Mrs. Mudge, angrily. "There's my best broom
broken; cost forty-two cents only last week."

She turned and contemplated the scene of devastation. This yielded her
little consolation.

"At least thirty cabbages destroyed by that scamp of a cow," she
exclaimed in a tone bordering on despair. "I wish I'd a hit her. If I'd
broken my broom over her back I wouldn't a cared so much. And it's all
Mudge's fault. He's the most shiftless man I ever see. I'll give him a
dressing down, see if I don't."

Mrs. Mudge's eyes snapped viciously, and she clutched t