been down here. You
don't know how we've tried! And it's all no use. I believe we are the
wickedest children in the whole world, and I wish we were all dead!"

This was a dreadful thing to say, and of course the rest of us were all
very shocked. But Oswald could not help looking at Albert's uncle to see
how he would take it.

He said, very gravely, "My dear kiddie, you ought to be sorry, and I
wish you to be sorry for what you've done. And you will be punished for
it." (We were; our pocket-money was stopped and we were forbidden to go
near the river, besides impositions miles long.) "But," he went on, "you
mustn't give up trying to be good. You are extremely naughty and
tiresome, as you know very well."

Alice, Dicky, and Noel began to cry at about this time.

"But you are not the wickedest children in the world by any means."

Then he stood up and straightened his collar, and put his hands in his
pockets.

"You're very unhappy now," he said, "and you deserve to be. But I will
say one thing to you."

Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget (though but
little he deserved it, with the obstruction in his pocket, unowned up
to all the time).

He said, "I have known you all for four years--and you know as well as I
do how many scrapes I've seen you in and out of--but I've never known
one of you tell a lie, and I've never known one of you do a mean or
dishonorable action. And when you have done wrong you are always sorry.
Now this is something to stand firm on. You'll learn to be good in the
other ways some day."

He took his hands out of his pockets, and his face looked different, so
that three of the four guilty creatures knew he was no longer adamant,
and they threw themselves into his arms. Dora, Denny, Daisy, and H. O.,
of course, were not in it, and I think they thanked their stars.

Oswald did not embrace Albert's uncle. He stood there and made up his
mind he would go for a soldier. He gave the wet ball one last squeeze,
and took his hand out of his pocket, and said a few words before going
to enlist. He said:

"The others may deserve what you say. I hope they do, I'm sure. But _I_
don't, because it was my rotten cricket-ball that stopped up the pipe
and caused the midnight flood in our bedroom. And I knew it quite early
this morning. And I didn't own up."

Oswald stood there covered with shame, and he could feel the hateful
cricket-ball heavy and cold against the top of his leg, thr