"Chet" (Yates)/Chapter 6

by Katherine Merritte Snyder Yates

Chapter VI

Over the Water With Twinny

THERE was not a very large party of us to go to Michigan City,—just Aunt Fannie and Uncle Fred and a Mrs. Walker, an old friend of theirs who used to live in the same town, and had twin daughters about twelve years old,—and they went along. They were mighty nice little girls, and looked so much alike that no one ever tried to tell which was Marian and which Margaret; but just said "Twinny," and that meant either, and either one answered. I asked one of them how she knew whether a person was speaking to—her or her sister, and she said,—"Why, I don't,—but it doesn't make any difference, does it?" I said I supposed not; but I heard the other one—I think it must have been the other one—say to Bess a while afterward,—

"Isn't it lovely to think that you are just yourself, and nobody else is you, and you are not anybody else?"

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Bess.

"I mean, I should think you'd be so sort of proud to be just yourself, all alone, and nobody like you, anywhere. Now with me it's different—there's always two of me, and that makes me so common."

Bess laughed at first, and then she looked a little sober, when she saw that Twinny's face was really wistful. "Why, childie," she said, "could two great, sweet American Beauty roses ever be common?"

"No," said Twinny, her face brightening.

"And if they were both just as sweet as they could possibly be, wouldn't it be nicer to have two than one?"

"Yes," said Twinny, the smiles beginning to come.

"Well, then, don't you worry," said Bess, "just be sweet."

It was nine o'clock when we reached the dock and the day was warm and sunny and the sky blue with little fluffy white clouds floating southward, and every once in a while a little whiff of wind from up the lake would put a white cap on a blue wave. The boat wasn't very large; but it was not at all crowded, and so we all went back to the stern and fixed our chairs so that we could watch the white wake and the long, uneven line of the city roofs, with its towering buildings wrapped in a veil of smoke that thinned and died away to the north and south, leaving the stretch of the park and beautiful homes standing out in the clear sunlight. We watched and chatted, and the twins certainly were fun. I liked one of them a good deal the better, but I could never tell which one it was; for whenever they'd get mixed up, I'd have to go to talking to the one that came handiest until I'd found out whether she was the one or not; and then when they'd get up and walk around, I'd get off of the track again. It was interesting, though, and I got to wagering my right pocket against my left pocket, as to whether I had the interesting one or not, until I got all of my loose change and keys and everything else over onto one side, and Bess wanted to know whether I was trying to show off my wealth, that I was rattling it around so much;—and the side I had 'em on, was the side where I put 'em when I missed my guess. They told a lot of funny stories about each other. Once one of them had to stay out of school for a while, and when she was ready to start in again, she couldn't find her new shoes; and at last she discovered that the other had been wearing them every other day, so as to keep 'em even, so that they could keep on getting new shoes at the same time.

And sometimes they had to answer the doorbell when the maid was away, and by and by one of them found out that when her sister answered the bell, if she had on her good clothes, she said that she was herself, but if she was the least bit untidy, she said that she was her sister; and so the sister got the reputation of being always untidy, and the other of being always nice and trim.

Her sister got even with her, though, by telling all the girls in school that she was the one that she wasn't, and that she was going to wear a little green bow on her sleeve, so that they could know her from the other; and then she wore her oldest clothes, and soiled her face and hands and missed her lessons and roughed her hair all up for a week, before the other one found out what she was doing.

They never got angry at each other, though,—they didn't seem to know how to. I think it must have been because they felt so much like one person.

By and by one of them said to Bess: "Mamma says you are a Christian Scientist. Are you?"

"I'm trying to be one," said Bess, carefully.

"Is Chester one?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because he doesn't understand it," said Bess. I started to say something about that reply, and then I decided to think about it a little first. I think now, that it was a mighty good answer,—a mighty good one.

"Then why doesn't he learn it, the way we learn lessons?"

Bess shook her head. "It's odd," she said. "Folks are willing to study all sorts of other things, like arithmetic, and music, and how to be doctors and lawyers, and house-builders,—they spend years and years at it; but they don't seem to think it's worth while to study how to do the wonderful things that Jesus did. They seem to think that if it is possible to do these very greatest things in the world, they ought to be able to do them without studying or practising at all,—and because they can't, they don't seem to like it because other people do. I don't see why; when Jesus said that we could do them all,—and 'greater things,'—and he was the most truthful person who ever lived."

Mrs. Walker had had one ear turned in our direction, and just then she leaned forward. "Don't you think, dear," she said, "that when Jesus said 'Heal the sick,' he meant the sick at heart?"

Bess's eyes opened wide. "Why, no!" she said, very earnestly. "He healed their bodies and their hearts, too, and told us to do just the same."

Mrs. Walker looked at her curiously, and then turned back to Aunt Fannie. "It's all Greek to me," she said, sighing and shaking her head;—"but I wish that I could understand it; for they are always such happy people."

"Let's go out in the bow and see if the saud dunes are in sight," called one of the twins. "You can see them for ever so far, and Chicago is almost gone now."

We all raced forward and crowded up around the flag-staff; and sure enough, away off in the distance, there were little dark streaks and patches beginning to show, quite a way above what looked like the sky line."

"There they are! There they are!" cried both of the twins together.

"Those dark spots are the trees and bushes on the tops of the dunes," explained one of the twins. "We don't get out of sight of land at all, on a clear day. When Chicago has dropped away from behind us, we can just begin to see Indiana."

"Indiana?" said Bess. "Why, I thought it was Michigan City that we were going to!"

"So it is," said Twinny—I don't know which one!—"but Michigan City is in Indiana. Didn't you know that?"

"No. Then why do they call it Michigan City?"

"Well," said Twinny, "it used to be in Michigan, so they say. Michigan used to stretch clear around the lake to Illinois, and Indiana didn't have any shore line at all; and that didn't seem fair, when Michigan has lake pretty nearly all around her; and so they made some sort of a bargain and let Indiana have that little corner. Michigan City was on a part of the land that Indiana took and so she had to change her last name."

We all laughed. "Just like getting married," said Bess.

"Is that really true?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Twinny. "The captain told me when I was coming over last year;—but you can never tell whether they are stuffing you or not."

"Why, Twinny Walker!" exclaimed the other twin. "Mamma doesn't allow you to use slang."

"Well, what would you say instead of 'stuffing,' I'd like to know?"

"Why—why—" the other twin couldn't think of a word. "Well," she said at last, "I think 'filling' is a good deal nicer word—"

We all laughed again. "All right," said Twinny, "have it any way you choose. Chester, the captain was 'filling' me!"

The other twin flushed. "No," she said, "that doesn't sound right, either. Bess, what should it be?"

"Well," said Bess, "I think it would be nicer to believe that he was telling the truth."

Twinny gave her a little hug. "I haven't heard you say a thing that was horrid since we started," she said. "How can you always say nice things about people when you don't even know them?"

"By thinking nice things instead of unpleasant ones," said Bess; "but I don't do it nearly as much as I ought to,—I'm only trying to get the habit."

"You never catch me getting that kind of habit," I said. "I always get the kind that have to be broken, smashed—until the word 'habit' always seems to mean something bad, that I have got to get rid of,—or ought to get rid of, at least."

"That's so," said Twinny, and then the other part of her interrupted.

"Oh, see how much bigger the waves are! Don't they look pretty and white on top? And look how plainly you can see the sand dunes now."

"Where's the city?" asked Bess. "I don't see anything but yellow hills all along the shore. There isn't a single break."

"Oh, yes there is," said Twinny. "When we get a little nearer you will see a wider space between two of the dunes, and that's where the river comes through, and then you can see some of the spires and buildings. The town is all behind the dunes."

Bess had turned away from the water and was looking rather anxiously toward the stern. "Hadn't we better go back to Aunt Fannie?" she asked, uneasily.

"Getting hungry?" I asked. "Well, it won't do you any good for we aren't to have luncheon until we get onto the beach; so you can just make up your mind to that, my young lady." I was hungry myself, and was sort of glad to relieve my mind that way.

"No," said Bess, soberly, "I just thought that maybe we would better go back where they are, before it's time to land."

"Oh, we won't be in for nearly an hour," said Twinny.

Bess took a few steps. "I think I'll go, anyway," she said.

"You're hungry, you're hungry!" I called. "You're going to ask Aunt Fanny for a sandwich."

Bess turned on me wrathfully; "I'm not either!" she cried hotly, "I'm not hungry, any such thing! I never want to see anything to eat again as long as I live!"

My jaw dropped and then suddenly I knew what was the matter, and I just toppled down onto a coil of rope and rolled over with my head in the middle of it, and laughed until I ached. I wonder why it is so awfully funny to see some other person seasick!

Bess didn't even try to laugh,—or, maybe she did try but it didn't show any on the surface, and as soon as I could get my breath, I was sorry I had laughed, and I got up and made her sit down on the rope. Then I took Twinny, both of her, and trotted them into the cabin and told them stories, so that Bess could have it out with herself. They wanted to send Aunt Fannie to her; but I told them to let her alone and she would be all right when she'd had time to think it over.

After a while I took them back to their mother, and then I went out to the bow again, and there was Bess, still on the coil of rope, and when I bent over her, I found that she was sound asleep,—and she didn't waken up until we had turned to go into the harbor, and then I went and called her.

The boat was still rolling a good deal, but she sat up, as fresh and chipper as could be.

"Snoozer!" I said.

"Whoo," she said, stretching her arms; "why, I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I never slept so hard in my life. Are we nearly there?"

"Just going into the river," I said, "and it's so crooked that the boat has to tie knots in herself to get through."

Bess jumped up. "Oh," she cried, "there's the life-saving station! See the look-out man on top!"

"That job looks good to me," I said. "Nothing to do but walk up and down there and watch for wrecks; and then, when you see one—Whee-ee-ee!"—and I went through all the motions of running out boats and managing oars and throwing life-preservers. I wanted to be right in the middle of a big storm and see what I'd do, and whether I'd keep my nerve. Just then we bumped into the piling; for that little river is so crooked that the boat had to run her nose right up onto the bank and then throw out a rope to hold her there, and swing around and go up to the dock backward. Gee, you ought to have seen her strain on that rope! They say that a lot of money has been spent on that harbor; but it's the most skewgee one that I ever saw.

Bess and I hurried back to where the others were gathering up wraps and lunch-boxes. "Twinny hadn't said a word about Bess, except that she had gone to sleep, and so she didn't get teased at all.

As soon as the landing was made, we kids raced off ahead of the others, up the slope to the street, across the bridge, through the little park, and away out onto the hard sand of the east beach.

And such a beach! It was white and smooth for miles and miles—as far as one could see—hard and firm near the water, loose and fine farther back; and then piled up in great soft dunes eighty or a hundred feet high, with trees and bushes on the tops of some of them, and others just smooth and round, and you could see the heads of oaks and maples that were growing on the landward slope, away from the wind, and only peeping over the top. Hoosier Slide is on the other side of the river, and that is a perfect mountain of sand, and almost straight up and down. Twinny said that they climbed it the Summer before, and it was so steep and so soft that they thought they never would get to the top, and it was a blazing hot day, too; but they would go up, because they wanted to see the view from there; and then when they got up, at last—here Twinny looked at each other and laughed.

"What's the matter?" I asked. "Wasn't the view worth it?"

"We don't know," said Twinny; "we never looked to see. After we'd gone and worn ourselves to a frazzle climbing up through all that loose sand, we found that if we had just gone around the base of the hill a little way, we could have walked right up an easy slope; and it made us so mad to think of all the bother we'd had, that we just turned around and went right back down without even looking at the view!"

Bess and I laughed. "Isn't that just the way," said Bess. "We struggle and struggle to get something; and then we spend so much time thinking about how hard it was to get, that we entirely lose sight of the thing itself, and don't get any good out of it."

"Here's the place," called Twinny, who had run a little way ahead. "This is where we ate last year."

"Why, how can you tell?" asked Bess, looking around; "It's just the same everywhere—only smooth sand."

"How can I tell? Why, by my footprints, of course," said Twinny, whirling around on her heel and making a funny, circular mound with a hole in the centre. "I always walk like that, you know, and then I can always tell where I've been," and she made another, a little farther on.

I sat her down on it. "Explain," I said, holding her there by the shoulders, and wondering which one she was.

"Oh, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, only let me get up," she cried. "Do you see that big heap of sand over there? Well, that covers an old rowboat that was washed up here on the beach a long time ago. When the lake is rough, the drift-wood gets caught in a little hollow behind it; and so, when we want to build a fire, it is nicer to do it here, where the wood is handy, instead of having to go over the dunes for it. Now let me get up, Chester;—we've got to hurry and get the wood, for I'm starving!"

"All right," said I. "You hungry, Bess?"

"I surely am," said Bess. "What are we going to cook?"

"Just eggs, and toast some marsh-mallows; we brought two boxes of them. Chester, you'll have to whittle some skewers. Twinny was going to; but when we found there was going to be a boy along, we thought we would give him the job."

We gathered the wood and then, while Aunt Fannie and Mrs. Walker were getting things in shape, we sat down on the sand-covered boat and I whittled skewers.

"I never in my life saw anything so beautiful as that lake," said Bess, leaning back in the soft sand. "Isn't it the bluest blue and the whitest white that you ever saw? Just look, where it dashes up against the breakwater!"

I looked. "Gee, those are big waves!" I said. "They're getting bigger all the time. It looks just like a storm, only the sun is shining so brightly, and the only clouds are those little soft, white ones. I'I'll bet shell be rough going back!"

"No, it won't," said Twinny. "The captain told Mamma that we would be going toward the wind and the boat wouldn't roll nearly so much. Don't you mind what he says, Bess."

Bess laughed. "I don't mind," she said, "I'm not afraid, and I haven't any idea of being sick, no matter how rough it is."

Twinny looked at her. "How did you do it?" she asked, wonderingly.

"Just by understanding why I needn't be sick," said Bess.

"But when the way you feel keeps telling you something different, how can you?"

"Well," said Bess, "supposing you were doing an example in arithmetic, and some one kept whispering in your ear:—'Five and five are eleven, five and five are eleven,' you'd know it wasn't true; and though it might bother and confuse you some, it wouldn't make you miss your example, would it, unless you stopped and listened to it and let it mix you up?"

Twinny thought a minute. "No," she said at last; "not if I kept on 'tending to business." And then;—"But what do you do when you see sickness and such things? I always have to believe what I see, and what other people around me see and believe."

Bess took one of the skewers and wrote on the smooth sand: "5+5=11."

"There," she said, "Can you see that?"

"Yes."

"Well, do you believe it?"

"No, of course I don't."

"Now suppose a lot of people should come along and see it and say:—'Yes, that's true, five and five are eleven,' what would you think then?"

Twinny studied again. "Well," she said, "I suppose I'd be sort of worried at first; and then I'd see that I'd got to prove it, and I'd hold up my fingers and count, just like a little young one, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten;—and then I'd know I wasn't mistaken, and it wouldn't make any difference what any one said."

"And the figures you could see wouldn't make any difference?" and Bess pointed to the "5+5 =11," printed on the sand.

Twinny whipped a little switch across them, blotting them out. "They wouldn't matter that to me," she said; "because I'd know better!"

"Then, do you see what I mean about understanding the truth about a thing?"

"Yes," said Twinny. "Then of course the first thing is to find out what the truth is. Is that it?"

"Yes," said Bess, "first find out what the truth is and why,—and then prove it every chance you get."

"And do you have to study very hard?"

"You have to study some—and think, more. It isn't yours until you've thought it out, no matter how much you read and commit to memory. You don't know a thing simply because some one has told it to you,—you know it because you've thought about it, and understand it, and proved it. If you knew 'five and five are ten,' only because some one had told you, then, when some one else said differently, you'd think that you might be mistaken, and you'd get muddled and worried, and maybe miss your example;—but when you can count, and understand, then you know exactly where you are, and nothing can budge you."

Twinny looked at her, with her eyes big. "It must have been very wonderful for the person who found out the truth," she said, softly. "Just think of finding out a marvellous thing like that, and then proving it, and then telling people, and telling them how to prove it for themselves,—and seeing them get better and happier because of it,—and—and—oh, wouldn't it be just glorious!"

"Yes," said Bess, soberly, "it must be glorious! All of the work, and the study and the pain, must be swallowed up in the glory of it!"

Twinny sat with her chin in the hollow of her hand. "And to think," she went on, "of the thousands and thousands of people who are thinking 'thank you' all the time,—thinking it with their whole hearts, not just saying it,—because they've learned how to be good and happy and well!"

Bess looked at her in surprise. "I didn't know that you knew so much about it," she said.

"I don't know much," said Twinny, shaking her head; "but I'm going to know more. I've been watching the Christian Scientists that I've met, and asking questions, until I'm satisfied—with the outside and—"

"And now you're going after the inside, are you?" I asked.

"I am," said Twinny, very earnestly, and then she laughed. "There's two of me to manage, though," she said, "and there's likely to be some squabbles."

"Ho," said Bess, "there's two of all of us when we begin, and we squabble dreadfully;—but the 'best man' always wins. You've got an extra one on your side, and so you ought to make double-quick time."

Just then Aunt Fannie called to us that luncheon was ready, and we made a wild rush for the spread.

After we'd toasted and eaten the last marsh-mallow, I dared the girls to climb to the top of the nearest sand dune. It was desperately steep, but it looked easy because the sand was so soft and fine; but, gee! that was just what made it hard, and we had to set out feet sidewise to get any foothold at all; and sometimes we'd go in almost to our knees.

"Oh, dear," cried Twinny, "I've got a peck of sand in each shoe and I can't feel my feet at all—and they're so heavy I can scarcely lift them. Chester, give me your hand."

So I went back and yanked them to the top, one at a time, and the only way I could do it, was by making them run a few steps and then drop in the sand, so as not to slide back, and then get up and run again. At last we were up, and stood there in the big wind, with the girls' hair and dresses flapping wildly, and the gulls swooping all about our heads.

"Oh, isn't it splendid!" cried Bess, waving her arms. "I always feel like singing and shouting when I'm out in the wind. I could almost fly! Isn't the lake perfectly grand? I never saw such great waves."

"Whoop!" I shouted, "Let's go down and wade! It'll be dandy fun. Come on. I'm going to see how far I can jump."

"Don't, Chester," called Twinny, "It's too steep," but I had already given a flying leap and landed ever so far below, in the soft, loose sand.

"Come on," cried Bess, "I'm not afraid," and the three of them came hopping and fluttering down the hill, for all the world like big grasshoppers.

I was about thirty feet from the bottom, when I suddenly had an idea. "I'm going to turn a somersault," and I bent over, with my head down the hill. "Here goes," I called, and keeled over. I did the somersault; but I didn't stop there—I kept right on! The turn was so quick that I didn't have time to straighten out, and another somersault followed, and then another faster one,—and then another—

"Chester, Chester," shouted the girls, "Stop, stop!" but they might just as well have shouted 'stop' to a rubber ball; for I was gathering momentum with every turn, and careening down that steep incline, all rolled up like a caterpillar, and enveloped in a cloud of sand and dust.

Exactly how many somersaults I turned, I'll never know; but it seemed as if the revolutions were at the rate of about five thousand to the second, and that I kept on going for a year or two.

When I reached the foot of the hill and a few rods more, I just unfolded and lay still. I didn't unfold myself, I just came unfolded, and I lay still because nothing else would, and I didn't seem to have energy enough to get up and try to stand on a beach that was walking off on its lower edge and swinging around to hit at me every once in a while.

The girls came chasing down the hill in reckless leaps, and by the time they reached me I had managed to sit up and was holding my head with both hands.

"Oh, Chester," cried Twinny, "what did you

"I had managed to sit up and was holding my head in both hands"

keep on turning for? You frightened us dreadfully."

I blinked and tried to brush the sand out of my hair. "Wha—what did I keep on turning for?" I said. "Well, what do you s'pose? Do you think I was playing foot-ball with myself like that, on purpose?"

"Couldn't you stop?" asked Bess.

"Stop nothing! Could you stop if you were a full-grown comet, or an avalanche, or any of those things?"

"But why didn't you straighten out?"

"Straighten out? How much time did I have to straighten out? You didn't notice me stopping at any way-stations, did you? Besides, how could I tell when I was right side up? S'pose I'd straightened out at the wrong time—I'd have come standing on my head—and then where would I have landed? Gee, but things are spinning!"

Just then Aunt Fannie came up, a good deal out of breath. "Chester," she said, "don't you do that again."

My jaw dropped. "Don't do it again! Well, say, Aunt Fannie, if you can make me do it again, you're a bigger woman than I take you for"; and I squared off and looked fierce. "I'll have you all know that I'm no educated caterpillar, and you don't get any more free performances out of me. Come on, I'm going wading, and if you girls see me duck my head again to-day, for goodness' sake, grab me; for I don't want to get started on any more trips like that."

We had a lot of fun in the water, and then wound up with a game of tag on the beach; and just as we were going to get on our shoes and stockings, Twinny came out from the hollow where the drift-wood was, with a big tumble-weed, left over from last year. It was a great globe of stiff stems and twigs, as light as a sponge and nearly as large as a bushel basket. I'd never seen one before, and I took it to examine it, when suddenly a gust of wind snatched it out of my hand and tossed it away up in the air, like a balloon; and when it came down it didn't lie still, but started off down the beach at a perfectly astonishing gait. I saw right off why they called it a "tumble-weed."

We started after it, but we might as well have chased a running horse, for we weren't in it at all. The thing hurtled along the smooth sand, every once in a while taking great leaps and bounds, exactly like a giant foot-ball being kicked by invisible players. It made diagonally across the beach, and straight for the foot of one of the largest sand dunes. We chased along, thinking we'd get it at the foot of the hill; but not on your life!—it wasn't stopping there. It just kept right on up the smooth, steep side of that hill, driven by the wind, and looking like nothing but a blurred, whirling mass of gray.

"Oh, Chester, Chester," shrieked Twinny, jumping up and down, "do see, that's just exactlythe way you looked, only you were coming down instead of going up! Oh, I wonder if it wants to stop!"

"Well, it sure won't do it any good to want to," I said; "any more than it did me. There, it's almost at the top. Whoo! did you see her jump?" for when the gray ball reached the top of the dune, it gave a wild leap into the air, over the summit, and then down, out of sight on the other side.

"Let's get some more," I said, "and race 'em. That one went at least a quarter of a mile. The wind is in exactly the right direction to give 'em a long stretch, and then take 'em over the hill. The one that's over the hill first, wins."

We found four more; but Twinny wouldn't take but one. They said they wouldn't race against each other, but would both have a hand in starting their one. I thought it was rather a nice idea. We had fun naming them. I called mine "Hoosier Boy," and Twinny's was "Skedaddle," and Bess called hers "Get There."

We all stood in a row and held the bushes high above our heads. Bess's had a piece of the stem, about four inches long, still on it, and I offered to cut it off; but she said to leave it, because it was so easy to hold it by while we waited for the right sort of a breeze. Pretty soon the breeze came, and I counted three, and Twinny screamed "They're off!" and away they went, high in the air, and then spinning along over the sand before the wind.

But no sooner had Get There struck the ground, than I let out a yell. "Oh, look at him—look at old Hop-and-go-fetch-it!" I shouted, "Look at him, look at him!" for the stem had proved his downfall, and instead of spinning along like the others, the sharp end of it would strike the ground at every turn, and the clumsy ball would rise upon it, make a funny leap into the air, and then roll over and come up again; giving it the most ridiculous, limping gait that you ever saw, and leaving him ever so far behind the others.

"He's gone lame,—he's gone lame!" I shouted. "He's got the string-halt!"

Bess laughed and cheered with the rest of us. "Oh, isn't he funny?" she cried. "Look at him jump! But, oh, see Skedaddle, he's ahead of Hoosier Boy! Chet, they're going to beat you!"

Hop-and-go-fetch-it, as I had christened Bess's racer, was a dozen feet behind the other two; and those two started up the hill almost side by side. Half way up they were neck and neck, and we were holding our breath with excitement, when suddenly, something happened—the lame fellow in the rear had reached the foot of the hill, and in one of his upward wabbles, a great gust of wind caught him, and he came racing wildly up the dune, in a series of perfectly tremendous leaps and bounds, scarcely seeming to touch the ground at all.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," cried Twinny, jumping up and down, as usual, "Hurry, Skedaddle, oh, do hurry up!"

But it didn't do any good, for Skedaddle and the Hoosier were spinning along at the same old gait, neck and neck, and Hop-and-go-fetch-it was gaining on them at every jump;—still, they were pretty close to the top, and might make it, yet. Just as they were almost at the brow of the hill, still close together, and the lame one about five feet behind,—Whoosh—there came a sudden gust of wind, and he rose high in the air, over the heads of the other two, gave a comical twist as if kicking up his heels, as he cleared the summit, and disappeared upon the other side, just as the others reached the top.

I jumped up and down with the others, and cheered. "Hurrah for old Hop-and-go-fetch-it! He won by three lengths, and he had only one leg, and was lame in that! The Hoosier and Skedaddle weren't a circumstance to him. Whoop!"

"Well," said Twinny, "I'm glad he won; because he had such a handicap, and it was fine for him to come out ahead in spite of it. Come on, Chester, we tied for second place, we ought to try again."

I was willing enough; but just then Aunt Fannie called that it was time for us to put on our shoes and get ready for the boat, which was to start at four o'clock; and so we had to let it go.

As we walked to the boat, we met Uncle Fred coming back from town with some paper bags that made us forget that we had ever seen a sandwich or a marsh-mallow. We didn't know what was in 'em, but they looked as if the trip home were going to have "some rather pleasant elements," as Bess said, very primly.

It did!