rward till five o'clock in the morning.
Before going down-stairs we peeped into Halse's room, to see if he were
there still. He lay soundly asleep. Addison closed the door softly.
"Poor noodle," said he, as we got the milk pails. "Let him snooze
awhile. I suppose it isn't really his fault that he has got such a head
on his shoulders. He is rather to be pitied, after all. He is his own
worst enemy.

"I've heard," Ad continued in a low tone, as we opened the barnyard
gate, "that Aunt Ysabel, Halse's mother, was a sort of queer, tempery,
flighty person."

The Old Squire had got out a little in advance of us and sat milking.
"Good morning, boys," said he, looking up cheerily, as we passed.
"Another fine day. The whole country looks bright and smiling. Grand
year for crops."

"We will not say a word to him about our scrape with Halse last night,"
Addison remarked to me. "There's no use plaguing him with it. We cost
him so much and give him so much trouble, that I am ashamed to let him
know of this."

When we took in the milk, Theodora was grinding coffee (and how good it
smelled! She had just roasted it in the stove oven). "We got him back
all right, with no great difficulty," Addison whispered to her, in
passing.

"Oh, I'm so glad," she replied.

Halse had not come down; and pretty soon we heard the Old Squire call
him, at which Addison laughed a little as he glanced at me. At
breakfast Halstead looked somewhat glum; in fact, he did not look at
Addison and me at all, if he could avoid it.

That forenoon we hoed corn again and talked a good deal of the Fourth of
July celebration which was to come off at the village the following
week.

Toward noon, however, word was sent us that the husband of a cousin of
the Old Squire's who resided in the town adjoining, to the eastward, had
suddenly died, and that the funeral was to be at two o'clock that
afternoon.

No one of the family seemed much disposed to attend it. It appeared that
the deceased had not been a highly respected citizen. It was said that
he had died from the effects of a fit of intoxication. The liquor which
drunkards were able to obtain, by hook or crook, at that period and in
spite of the Prohibitory Law, was of a peculiarly deleterious character.

At dinner the Old Squire remarked that he should attend the funeral, and
that I could go with him, if I liked, but that the others might be
excused. I at once accepted the invitation; almost anything was
pr