hey have done, dear. They took my 'two' for a
'ten,' and--and they did the best they could to supply my wants!"

"Well, but--why don't you send them home? We can't--"

"Yes, yes; I know, dear," interrupted the woman hastily, the happy look
gone from her eyes. "After dinner I am--that is, you may send all but
two home. I thought I 'd let them play awhile."

"Humph!" ejaculated the man; "send them home?--I should think so!" he
muttered, as his wife went to call the children to dinner.

What a wonderful meal that was, and how the good things did vanish down
those five hungry throats!

The man at the head of the table looked on in dumb amazement, and he
was still speechless when, after dinner, five children set upon him and
dragged him out to see the bird's nest behind the barn.

"An' we found the pigs an' the chickens, Mister, jest as they said we
would," piped up Tommy eagerly, as they hurried along.

"An' a teeny little baby cow, too," panted the smaller girl, "an' I fed
him."

"Well, I guess you could n't 'a' fed him if I had n't held him with the
rope," crowed Bobby.

"Or if I had n't scared him with my stick!" cut in Tilly. "I guess you
ain't the only pebble on the beach, Bobby Mack!"

"Good Heavens!" groaned Mr. Wentworth, under his breath. "And have I
got to keep two of these little hoodlums for a whole fortnight?
Er--children," he said aloud, after the bird's nest had been duly
admired; "er--suppose we go and--er--read."

Into the house trooped the five chattering boys and girls in the wake
of an anxious, perplexed man. Some minutes later the children sat in a
stiff row along the wall, while the man, facing them, read aloud from a
ponderous calf-bound volume on "The Fundamental Causes of the Great
Rebellion."

For some time Mr. Wentworth read without pausing to look up, his
sonorous voice filling the room, and his mind wholly given to the
subject in hand; then he raised his eyes--and almost dropped the book
in his hand: Tommy, the cripple, sat alone.

"Why, where--what--" stammered Mr. Wentworth.

"They've gone out ter the barn, Mister," explained Tommy cheerfully,
pointing to the empty chairs.

"Oh!" murmured Mr. Wentworth faintly, as he placed the book on the
shelf. "I--er--I think we won't read any more."

"Come on, then; let's go to the barn," cried Tommy. And to the barn
they went.

There were no "Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion" in the barn,
but there were fundamental