ery likely know who
their fathers were, and send them straight home. Dear! dear! What a pity
they happened to fall asleep! And why need the man have come out there
in the night with a lantern?--a man who probably had a bed of his own to
sleep in.

"I--I--" said Willy, brushing the frost off his knees; and that is
probably as far as he would have gone with his speech, for his tongue
failed him entirely; but Fred, being afraid he might tell the whole
truth,--which was a bad habit of Willy's,--gave him a sly poke in the
side, as a hint to stop. Willy couldn't and wouldn't make up a wrong
story; but Fred could, and there was nothing he enjoyed more.

"Well, sir," said he, clearing his throat, and looking up at the farmer
with a face of baby-like innocence, "I guess you don't know me--do you?
My name's Johnny Quirk, and this boy here's my brother, Sammy Quirk."

Willy drew back a little. It seemed as if he himself had been telling a
lie. Ah! and wasn't it next thing to it?

"Quirk? Quirk? I don't know any Quirks round in these parts," said the
farmer.

"O, we live up yonder," said Fred, pointing with his finger. "We live
two miles beyond Harlow, and we were down to Cross Lots to aunt
Nancy's, you see, and they sent for us to come home,--mother did. Our
father's dreadful sick: they don't expect he'll get well."

"You don't say so! Poor little creeturs! And here you are out doors,
sleeping on the rough boards. Come right along into the house with me,
and get warm. What's the matter with your father?"

"Some kind of a fever; and he don't know anything; he's awful sick,"
replied Fred, running his sleeve across his eyes.

The good farmer's heart was touched. He thought of his own little boys,
no older than these, and how sad it would be if they should be left
fatherless.

"Come in and get warm," said he. "It's four o'clock, and you shall sleep
in a good bed till six, and then I'll wake you up, and give you some
breakfast."

"O, I don't know as we can; we ought to be going," said Fred, wiping his
eyes; "father may be dead."

"Yes, but you shall come in," persisted the farmer; "you're all but
froze. If 'twas my little boys, I should take it kindly in anybody that
made 'em go in and get warm. Besides, you can travel as fast again if
you start off kind of comfortable."

A good bed was so refreshing to think of that the boys did not need much
urging; but Willy entered the house with downcast eyes and feelings of
shame,