very which gave them a good deal of comfort.

"We've got a door to our cabin!" she called out from inside it. "Quite a
good door. See," she said, swinging it. "We can shut our cabin up, just
like any house, and fasten it, too. Here's a great button on the
door-post. Nothing can get in to hurt us after we shut and button our
door. Have you got any door to your cabin?"

Investigation of our cabin disclosed no door. There was a _button_ on
the door-post; but the door had been removed.

The girls laughed at us. "A fine house you've got!" said Kate. "No door!
You will be carried off before morning by a panther."

"Never mind us," replied Addison. "Fasten up your own door, snug and
tight."

"When we get ready to go to bed," said Willis, "we will _turn our
button_; I guess that will answer for us.

"But I've got the partridges all dressed," he continued, "and I'm going
to cut them up and put them into the tin kettle, to parboil, and then,
when they are partly cooked, you can put them into the frying-pan, if
you like."

"Can't you thicken up some kind of a flour and butter gravy to go with
those partridges, Kate?" said Tom.

"Why, bless you, Thomas, there's no flour!" replied his sister.

"I think I could use Indian meal instead of flour," said Theodora,
"though I wouldn't promise it would be as good, since it might taste a
little coarse."

"Well, try it, anyway," said Tom; "for I like that kind of a gravy first
rate."

"Oh, it just makes me laugh to hear boys talk about cooking," exclaimed
Kate. "They do have such droll ideas!"

"Well, I know what I like," said Tom; "and I wouldn't give much for a
girl that cannot make a gravy."

"Oh, the nice, agreeable boy! So he should have his gravy on his
partridge," teased Kate.

"I've too much regard for the reputation of our family to quarrel with
my sister before folks," laughed Thomas. "She's an awful provoking
thing, though!"

"Oh, the dear boy!" retorted Kate.

"Somebody give me some cold water to hold in my mouth," groaned Tom.
"She must have the last word, anyway."

That was quite a common kind of encounter between Tom and his sister
Kate; yet I never saw brother and sister more attached to each other.
Only about a year and a half younger than her brother, Kate was a match
for him in about everything and rather more than a match in repartee.

Meantime Theodora was toasting some squares of bread to put in the
partridge fricassee, and looking about for a dis