you."

"'Twan't me, nother!" said the boy surlily; "nor I hain't done nothin'!
but minded my own business."

In a tone which implied that Mr. Simlins was not acting on the same
laudable principle.

"What has been done?" said Mr. Linden. And certainly _his_ tone implied
that he was minding his own business.

"Well," said Mr. Simlins, "I don't know as they've done much of
anything; but I guessed they'd been givin' her some sass or vexin' her
somehow; and as she's a kind o' favour_ite_ o' mine it riled me. I was
too fur to hear what 'twas."

"Where was she?

"She was round yonder--not fur--There had been some sort of a
scrimmage, I guess, between two of 'em, a little one and this fellow;
and she parted 'em. She had hold o' this one when I see 'em
first--_you_ couldn't have done it better," said Mr. Simlins with a sly
cast of his eye;--"you can set her to be your 'vice' when you want one.
I was comin' up from the river, you see, and came up behind 'em, and I
couldn't hear what they said; but when she let him go, I see her give a
kind o' sheer look round this way, and then she put up her hand to her
cheek and cleared for home like--a gazetteer!"--said Mr. Simlins, who
had given this information in an undertone. "Made straight tracks for
the house, I tell ye!"

"A little one and _which_ one?" was the next inquiry.

Mr. Simlins went peering about among the crowd and finally laid hold on
the identical shoulder of little Johnny Fax.

"Ain't it you?" said Mr. Simlins. "Ain't that red basket yourn?"

Johnny nodded.

"I knowed the basket," said Mr. Simlins returning. "That's about all
that makes the difference between one boy and another! what sort of a
basket he carries. The other fellow is the one I was speakin' to
first--I can swear to _him_--the big one."

Mr. Linden took out his watch.

"Thank you, Mr. Simlins," he said. "Boys--it is half past four,--get
your nuts and baskets and bring them up to the house. Reuben Taylor--do
you see that it is done." With which words Mr. Linden also 'made
tracks' for the house--and 'straight' ones, but with not too much
notice-taking of the golden leaves under his feet.

The truth about Faith was this. While sitting on the grass, taking the
pleasure of the place and time, the peace was at length broken by
discordant sounds in her neighbourhood; sounds of harsh voices, and
scuffling. Looking round for the cause and meaning of all this, she
found that the voices came from beh