st," begged Ruth.

"No--please--Ruthie! I can't," wailed Dot.

"Let sister tie a stout thread around it, and you pull it out yourself,"
suggested Ruth, as a last resort.

Finally Dot agreed to this. That is, she agreed to have the thread tied
on. Neale climbed the back fence into Mr. Murphy's premises and obtained
a waxed-end of the cobbler. This, he said, would not slip, and Ruth
managed to fasten the thread to the root of the little tooth.

"One good jerk, and it's all over!" proclaimed Agnes.

But this seemed horrible to Dot. The tender little gum was sore, and the
nerve telegraphed a sense of acute pain to Dot's mind whenever she
touched the tooth. One good jerk, indeed!

"I tell you what to do," said Neale to the little girl. "You tie the
other end of that waxed-end to a doorknob, and sit down and wait.
Somebody will come through the door after a while and jerk the tooth
right out!"

"Oh!" gasped Dot.

"Go ahead and try it, Dot," urged Agnes. "I'm afraid you are a little
coward."

This accusation from her favorite sister made Dot feel very badly. She
betook herself to another part of the house, the black thread hanging
from her lips.

"What door are you going to sit behind, Dot?" whispered Tess. "I'll come
and do it--_just as easy!_"

"No, you sha'n't!" cried Dot. "You sha'n't know. And I don't want to
know who is going to j-j-jerk it out," and she ran away, sobbing.

Being so busy that morning, the others really forgot the little girl.
None of them saw her take a hassock, put it behind the sitting-room door
that was seldom opened, and after tying the string to the knob, seat
herself upon the hassock and wait for something to happen.

She waited. Nobody came near that room. The sun shone warmly in at the
windows, the bees buzzed, and Dot grew drowsy. Finally she fell fast
asleep with her tooth tied to the doorknob.

CHAPTER VI

AGNES LOSES HER TEMPER AND DOT HER TOOTH

It was on this morning--Friday, ever a fateful day according to the
superstitiously inclined--that the incident of the newspaper
advertisement arose.

The paper boy had very early thrown the Kenways' copy of the Milton
_Morning Post_ upon the front veranda. Aunt Sarah spent part of each
forenoon reading that gossipy sheet. She insisted upon seeing the paper
just as regularly as she insisted upon having her five cents' worth of
peppermint-drops to take to church in her pocket on Sunday morning.

But on this particular m