f their grandfather and the
servant-maids. But Benjy had gone to sleep, and the servants had taken
the time to pay a visit to the next farmhouse. The children however did
not notice this; they were sitting on the door-step at the back of the
house, at the opposite end of the passage to where their grandfather
was. They enjoyed the wind that was blowing through so pleasantly, and
Yulee was reading aloud from a book to her brother Bo. Yulee was eight
years old; her real name was Julia, but no one but the school mistress
ever called her so. Bo, short for Robert, was two years younger and
wanted to do everything that Yulee did. Wherever Yulee was, there you
would be sure to find Bo. He followed her about as faithfully as a
chicken does her mother, and Yulee treated him very much as a hen does
its only chicken.

The book they were reading was called "_The Castaways_," and Bo was
listening to Yulee with the greatest attention. At last, just as the
great clock in the hall struck three, Yulee finished; she had skipped
some of the parts, especially the hard names and Miss Keenmark's
science, but she had read the book through and Bo had heard most of it.

"Bo!" said she, as she shut the book, "I'd like to be a castaway,
wouldn't you? It would be so fine to live on the top of a rock and have
to go up a rope ladder, and keep goats, and save the lives of Africans,
and sleep in an ox-cart!"

"Oh, but the lions!" said Bo, "and the--and the--what are those big
things that live in the water, and most swallowed the canoe?--you know."

"I know what you mean," said Yulee. "The hippopotamuses. I said the word
all the way going to school yesterday, so as to remember it."

"I shouldn't like them," said Bo.

"Oh, but one of the men would fire right into his mouth, just as Albert
did. I'll find the place;" and turning over the leaves of the book, she
came to the story, and read:--"But they had not been long seated when a
tremendous shock was felt; the light canoe was thrown above the water,
and capsized in a moment; and Albert, who was standing at the stern of
the raft, watching the boat, saw, to his great horror, the huge head of
a hippopotamus raised above the water, preparing to seize the canoe with
its red open mouth. Calling for aid, he seized his gun and fired in the
face of the ferocious beast, which with terrific roars, dived down and
disappeared."

"But who'd you have to shoot the--pippi--what is it?" asked Bo.

"The hippopota