go across the field and the West Woods we come out not far from
the stationer's, and we can leave the tips up at Rose House on the way
back so they'll be ready for you to put on to-morrow and the youngsters
can have the bows and arrows to play with right off."

"Let me go," begged Dicky.

"All right," agreed Roger. "Be careful when you go over the railroad
track, girls. Mother isn't very keen on having Dicky learn that road,
you know."

They promised to be careful and set forth in the opposite direction
from the rest of the party whom they left putting together the remnants
of the feast and packing away the plates.

It was an interesting walk. They played Indian all the way. Ethel
Blue's imagination had been greatly stimulated by the tale of the
attack on Deerfield and she pretended to see an Indian behind every
tree. Ethel Brown pretended to shoot them all with unerring arrow, and
Dicky charged the bushes in handsome style and routed the enemy with
awful slaughter.

"This is just the kind of game we ought not to play if we want to make
Dicky think of peace and not of war," declared Ethel Blue at last when
she had become breathless from the excitement of their countless
adventures.

"That's so. It's funny how you forget. It's just as Delia says--we
don't realize how fighting and soldiers and thinking about military
things is put into our minds even in games when we're little."

"I'm really sorry we've done this," confessed. Ethel Brown as they
fell behind their charge. "Dicky's 'pretending' works over time
anyway, and he may dream about Indians, or get scared to go to bed, and
it will be our fault."

"It's rather late to think about it--but let's try not to do it again.
Isn't there something we can call his attention to now to take his mind
off Indians?"

Dicky was marching ahead of them drawing an imaginary bow and bringing
down a large bag of imaginary birds, while from the difficulty with
which he occasionally dragged an imaginary something behind him it
seemed that he had at least slain an imaginary deer.

Naturally, with his hunting blood up, the Ethels found him not
responsive to appeals to "see what a pretty flower this is" or to
examine the hole of a chipmunk. He was after more thrilling
adventures. Still, by the time they reached the railroad track,
everyday matters were beginning to command his attention. This short
cut across the track was one that he had seldom been allowed to take,