ds where there is a nice chance to camp. Tom was
up there once. It is quite a good ways. We should have to camp out over
night. Wouldn't that be fun? There's a brook up there full of fish, they
say; and there are partridges and lots of game. My folks will let Tom
and me go, if Theodora and Ellen and Addison go. Mother thinks Dora is
the nicest girl there ever was about here; she holds her up as a pattern
for me, regularly. But I happen to know that Dora enjoys having a good
time, as much as I do.

"Now you put them up to go," Kate added, as we came to the west field
bars, where our ways homeward diverged. "Good-by. I've had a real nice
walk."

It was certainly very polite for her to say that; for she had been
obliged to do nearly all the talking.

Addison and Theodora were standing out near the bee hives and saw me
coming across the field to the house. A great and embarrassing fear fell
upon me, as I saw them observing my approach. Even now, Catherine was
still in sight, at a distance, crossing Mr. Edwards' field. My two
cousins had been waiting about for me to bring _The Portland Transcript_
and _The Boston Weekly Journal_, which they read very constantly in
those days.

"Aha! aha!" exclaimed Addison, significantly. "Seems to me that you have
been gone a long time after the mail!"

"And who is that young lady we saw you taking leave of, over at the
bars?" put in Theodora.

A very small hole would have sufficed for me to creep into at about that
time!

"See how red he is," hectored Addison. "We've found him out. I had no
idea he was any such boy as this!"

"Dear me, no," said Theodora, pretending to be vastly scandalized. "Just
see how bold he behaves! I never would have thought it of him!" Thus
they tormented me, winking confidentially to each other; and an eel
being skinned alive for the frying-pan would not have suffered more than
I did from their gibes.

For a number of days after the Fair, we found it difficult to settle
down to farm work, so greatly had it interrupted the ordinary course of
events. When we did get to work again, our first task was to pick the
winter apples, the Baldwins and Greenings, and barrel them, for market.
Gramp did not allow these apples to be shaken off the trees; they must
all be hand-picked, then carefully sorted up and the first layers placed
in the barrels in rows around the bottom. Baldwins and Greenings, thus
barrelled, will keep sound till the following March; but if ca