essness of her reckless mood. She knew well enough the backward
inclination proper for her head, what the relative positions of her
knees and chin should be, and if she had taken the least forethought
might have redeemed the declining reputation of her boyhood. The
knowledge flashed across her in her swift descent that her spine had
not preserved the proper perpendicular, and that she was coming down
wrong. Chin and knees knocked together as she fell in a heap on the
grass below.

[Illustration: MOLLIE IS CARED FOR BY THE BOYS.]

It was a caving in of skull, she thought, that made that horrible
crashing pain and that sent lightning dancing on a black background
before her eyes, then blinded her quite. Nothing but a general chaos
of skull and brain could make such terrible pain. She wondered if her
friends would be able to recognize one dear lineament in the jumble
of her features. She thought what a sad fate it was to die young. She
wondered how Mr. John would feel now! and then she found that light
dawned upon her and that she had an eye open. In a moment she
discovered that the sense of hearing, too, had not abandoned her;
for the boys had reached her by this time, and she heard Mr. John's
nephew, John, saying:

"She's knocked her teeth through her lip, that's all. I did it once
when I jumped wrong and hit my chin on my knee. She'll soon be all
right."

Two eyes open now, and she saw a bloody frock, and what seemed an army
of boys; for there was something still the matter with her vision
which caused it to multiply.

"Boys, boys, nothing but boys!" thought Mollie, dropping her lids.
"Where did they all come from, I wonder? There must be a thousand. I
never want to see another. I wouldn't be one for the world. I wish
they'd go away."

Then she felt some one bathing her face gently, and when the water had
refreshed her, she ventured another peep at the world. Boys around her
still; but she could see now that their number was only four, and the
faces those of friends.

"Cheer up, Mollie," said John, jr. "You got a hard knock, but you're
coming on. Bob's gone for the phaeton, and we'll have you home in no
time."

They propped her up against a tree, and continued to bathe her head
with water from Jerry's felt hat, filled at the little brook close by.

All this while Mr. John had been accounting for their absence by
supposing that Mollie was taking some sort of revenge on him, and he
would permit none of the gi