he took her up, carried her into the barn, and put her on the
floor where the other geese had stayed all night. We stood and looked
at her some more, as if looking and hoping would make her get up and be
alive again. But there's nothing in all this world so useless as
wishing dead things would come alive; we had to do something.

"What are you going to tell mother?"

"Shut up!" said Leon. "I'm trying to think."

"I'll say it was as much my fault as yours. I'll go with you. I'll
take half whatever they do to you."

"Little fool!" said Leon. "What good would that do me?"

"Do you know what they cost? Could you get another with some of your
horse money?"

I saw it coming and dodged again, before I remembered the Crusaders.

"All right!" I said. "If that's the way you are going to act, Smarty,
I'll lay all the blame on you; I won't help you a bit, and I don't care
if you are whipped until the blood runs."

Then I went out of the barn and slammed the door. For a minute I felt
better; but it was a short time. I SAID that to be mean, but I did
care. I cared dreadfully; I was partly to blame, and I knew it.
Coming around the barn, I met Laddie, and he saw in a flash I was in
trouble, so he stopped and asked: "What now, Chicken?"

"Come into the barn where no one will hear us," I said.

So we went around the outside, entered at the door on the embankment,
and he sat in the wheelbarrow on the threshing floor while I told him.
I thought I felt badly enough, but after I saw Laddie, it grew worse,
for I remembered we were short of money that fall, that the goose was a
fine, expensive one, and how proud mother was of her, and how she'd be
grieved, and that was trouble for sure.

"Run along and play!" said Laddie, "and don't tell any one else if you
can help it. I'll hide the goose, and see if I can get another in time
to take the place of this one, so mother won't be worried."

I walked to the house slowly, but I was afraid to enter. When you are
all choked up, people are sure to see it, and ask fool questions. So I
went around to the gate and stood there looking up and down the road,
and over the meadow toward the Big Woods; and all at once, in one of
those high, regular bugle calls, like they mostly scream in spring, one
of Pryors' ganders split the echoes for a mile; maybe farther.

I was across the road and slinking down inside the meadow fence before
I knew it. There was no thought or plan. I star