Donald and Dorothy. Dodge Mary Mapes

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СКАЧАТЬ in the afternoon, with Uncle and the girls. But we'll use the rifle for that."

      "What girls?" asked Charity Cora, eagerly, hoping, from Donald's plural way of putting it, that she and Ella Elizabeth possibly were to have a share in the sport; whereat Daniel David, guessing her thoughts, answered for Donald, with a cutting, "Why, Queen Victoria and the royal princess, to be sure. Who else could it be?"

      Cora made no reply, but, feeling rather ashamed, rubbed her arms (a habit of hers whenever the baby for the moment happened to be out of them), and looked at Donald.

      "Josie Manning and Ed Tyler are coming over after dinner," said Donald.

      "I should think they'd rather come to dinner," spoke up Ella Elizabeth, with hungry eyes. "Turkeys and things – Oh, my! Punkin pie!"

      This called forth two exclamations in a breath:

      Dan. David:"'Punkin pie! Oh, my!' We're getting poetical. Call 'Mandy, quick. Punkin pie – sky high."

      Fandy:"Don't be so unproper. It's pumpkun pie. Dorothy said so. And, besides, we ought to let the comp'ny do the talking."

      "Humph! By this time, we've made them forget what they were talkin' about."

      "Not I, Charity," laughed Donald, turning to the latest speaker. "In the first place, Josie and Ed didn't feel like leaving home on Thanksgiving Day till after dinner, and we two fellows are going to teach Josie and Dorry to shoot straight. And" (now addressing Ben, who by this time was wedging the handle of a hammer) "as for the gun, Ben, you're always welcome to it, so long as you return it in as good order as you did last time. You cleaned it better than I do."

      "I found the rags," said Helen, slyly, – "ever so many. Didn't I, Ben?"

      Ben nodded at her, and Helen, made happy for the whole day, ran off hugging a broken dolly in exact imitation of Charity and Baby Jamie; meanwhile her big brother, pleased at Don's compliments, remarked, "It's a prime gun, and never fails."

      "Never fails you, Ben, you may as well say. It often fails me, never mind how carefully I aim."

      "That's just it, Donald," said Ben. "There's no good in aiming so particular."

      "Well, what's a fellow to do?" replied Donald. "You must take aim, and by the time you get a bird well sighted, he's gone."

      "Sight? I never sight," said Ben. "I just fire ahead."

      "You don't mean to say you shoot a bird without aiming at him?"

      "Oh, well, I aim, of course; but I don't look through the sight, or any such nonsense."

      "I don't understand," said Donald, doubtingly.

      "Don't you? Why, it's just this: if the bird's flying he'll go ahead, won't he? Well, you fire ahead and meet him, – that's the whole of it. You know how an Indian shoots an arrow. He doesn't look along the line of the arrow for ten minutes, like a city archer; he decides, in a flash, what he's going to do, and lets fly. Practice is the thing. Now, when you're after a wild duck, you can aim exactly at him and he's safe as a turnip; but see a strip of water ahead betwixt the muzzle of your gun and him, and he's a gone bird, if you fire straight. You have to allow for diving – but practice is the thing. Learn by missing."

      "Oh, that's good!" shouted Daniel David; "'learn by missing.' I'm going to try that plan in school after this. Don't you say so, Fandy?"

      "No, I don't," said the inflexible Fandy, while he gazed in great admiration at the two big boys.

      At this point, the mother appeared at the door with an empty pail in each hand, and before she had time to call, David and Fandy rushed toward her, seized the pails, and would have been off together for the well, if Mrs. Danby had not said, "Let David get the water, Fandy, and you bring me some light wood for boiling the kettle."

      "You can't boil the kettle, Ma," called out one of the children. "You boil the water."

      "No more you can't," assented Mrs. Danby, with an admiring laugh.

      All this time, Dorry had been tossing the struggling baby, and finally winning it to smiles, though every fibre in its plump little body was squirming in the direction of Charity Cora. Meanwhile, that much-enduring sister had made several pungent remarks, in a low tone, to her visitor, concerning babies in general and Jamie in particular.

      "Now you see how nice it is! He keeps up that wriggling all day. Now it's to come to me; but when I have him, it's wriggling for the chickens, and for Mother, and for everything. And if you set him down out-of-doors he sneezes; and if you set him down in the house he screams; and Ma calls out to know 'if I can't amuse that baby!' I tote him round from morning to night – so I do!"

      Here the baby's struggles became so violent and noisy that Charity Cora savagely took him from Dorry; whereat he threw his plump little arms about his sister's neck with such a satisfied baby-sigh that she kissed him over and over, and looked in placid triumph at Dorothy, apparently forgetting that she ever had made the slightest complaint against him.

      "Have you begun with your new teacher yet?" she asked, hugging Jamie, and looking radiantly at Dorothy.

      "Oh, no!" answered Dorry. "How did you know Dr. Lane was going?"

      "Ma heard it somewhere! My, don't I wish I had a teacher to come every day and put me through! I'm just dying to learn things. But something always interferes with my getting to school. There's so much to do in the house; and now that we're to have a boarder there'll be more to do than ever. It's nice to be useful, I s'pose, but I'm really as ignorant, Dorothy Reed, as a – as a baby" (this simile was suggested by little Jamie's busy efforts to pull off her linen collar); "why, do you know, I can't even – "

      And here the girls sauntered off together to sit down on a tree-stump, and have a good long talk, if the baby would allow it.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

      Just as Donald and Dorothy were about to end the outdoor visit to the Danbys described in our last chapter, Coachman Jack was seen in a neighboring field, trying to catch Mr. Reed's spirited mare, "Lady," that had been let out to have a run. He already had approached her without difficulty and slipped a bridle over her head, but she had started away from him, and he, feeling that she had been allowed playtime enough, was now bent on recapturing her.

      Instantly a dozen Danby eyes were watching them with intense interest. Then Donald and Ben, not being able to resist the impulse, scampered over to join in the race, closely followed by Dan and Tandy. Gregory, too, would have gone, but Charity called him back.

      It was a superb sight to see the spirited animal, one moment standing motionless at a safe distance from Jack, and the next, leaping about the field, mane and tail flying, and every action telling of a defiant enjoyment of freedom. Soon, two grazing horses in the same field caught her spirit; even Don's pony, at first looking soberly over a hedge in the adjoining lot, began frisking and capering about on his own account, dashing past an opening in the hedge as though it were as solid a barrier as the rest. Nor were Jack and the boys less frisky. Coaxing and shouting had failed, and now it was an open chase, in which, for a time, the mare certainly had the advantage. But what animal is proof against its appetite? Clever little Fandy had rushed to Mr. Reed's barn, and brought back in his hat a light lunch of oats for the mare, which he at once bore into her presence, shaking it temptingly, at the same time slowly backing away from her. The little midget and his hatful succeeded, where big man and boys had failed. The mare came cautiously up and СКАЧАТЬ