sun rose, but it did not
for a long time make any impression on the fog. All at once, about seven
o'clock, the fog vanished, and the boys found themselves in a little bay
near the extreme northerly part of the lake. They had been rowing across
this little bay, first in one direction and then in another, during all
those miserable hours when they found such an unaccountable quantity of
shore.

Of course they rowed down to the camp, where they found Jim still
sleeping soundly, with a contented, happy look that was awfully
exasperating. They woke him up, and scolded him with all the strength
they had left, and then, putting on dry clothes, "turned in," and slept
all day. Jim towed the borrowed boat back, but was not shot; and the
boys afterward said that, on the whole, they were rather glad that he
still lived, and that they would mercifully forgive him.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

JED'S FIRST HALF.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

Jed was thinking.

Anybody who looked at him would have seen that much, for he was standing
all alone at the corner, leaning against the big poplar, with both hands
in his trousers pockets.

The village was one long "main street," with little short side streets
cutting across it, so that it did not have any "middle" to speak of; but
the "centre" of it and of everything else was right there before Jed's
eyes, on the steps of the grocery. It was in the shape of a stack of
boxes of fire-crackers, and Jed was gazing at it.

It had been almost cruel of old Philips, the grocer, to pile them up out
there the last week in June, to make Jed and the other boys count their
pennies and feel uncomfortable.

Fourth of July was coming, and Jed knew he would not be half ready for
it. There were five other little Pullmans, and Jed felt as if he alone
could use up "fire-crackers for six."

Think of having one of those boxes--a whole one--with nobody knew how
many packs in it!

"I'd treat every boy I know, except Prop Hooker; and mebbe I'd give him
some if he'd promise not to throw any more stones at Barlow."

The thought of such riches was a little too much for a boy of nine, and
Jed slowly sidled around the trunk of the poplar, as if he were trying
to get away, but his eyes did not turn with him. They stuck to the
crackers.

"Hullo, my little man, what's your name?"

"Jed, sir."

He had to look up, up, up, to get at the grim, weather-beaten, but not
unkindly face of the elderly farmer before him.