The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V

THE CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPERS ²

By Elliott Flower

 
Ten thoughtful women, ever wise,
A wondrous scheme did once devise
For ease, and to economize.
 
 
"Coöperation!" was their cry,
And not a husband dared deny
'Twould life and labor simplify.
 
 
One gardener, the ten decreed,
Was all the neighborhood would need
To plant and trim and rake and weed.
 
 
The money saved they could invest
As vagrant fancy might suggest,
And each could then be better dressed.
 
 
So well this worked that, on the whole,
It seemed to them extremely droll
To pay so much for handling coal.
 
 
One man all work then undertook,
And former methods they forsook,
Deciding even on one cook.
 
 
One dining-room was next in line,
Where, free from care, they all could dine
At less expense, as you'll divine.
 
 
"Two maids," they said, "could quickly flit
From home to home, so why permit
Expense that brings no benefit?"
 
 
Economy of cash and care
Became a hobby of the fair,
Until their husbands sought a share.
 
 
"Although," the latter said, "all goes
For luxuries and costly clothes,
The method still advantage shows.
 
 
"While we've not gained, we apprehend
Good Fortune will on us attend,
If we continue to the end.
 
 
"If you've succeeded, why should we
From constant toil be never free?
One income should sufficient be;
 
 
"And, taking turns in earning that,
We'll have the leisure to wax fat
And spend much time in idle chat.
 
 
"So let us see the matter through,
And, in this line, it must be true
One house for all will surely do.
 
 
"And if one house means less of strife,
To gain the comforts of this life,
Why, further progress means one wife."
 

         *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

 
Ten women now, their acts attest,
Prefer ten homes, and deem it best
To let coöperation rest.
 

A COMMITTEE FROM KELLY'S

By J.V.Z. Belden

"Katherine—give it up, dear—" The man looked down into the earnest eyes of the girl as she sat in the shadow of a palm in the conservatory at the Morrison's. Strains of music from the ball-room fell on unheeding ears and she sighed as she looked up at him.

"I can not turn back now, Everett," she said. "Ever since that day I spent down on the east side I have looked at life from a different standpoint. A message came to me then and I must listen. For a year I have been preparing myself to take my part in this work. To-morrow I take possession of what is called a model flat, and I hope to teach those poor little children something besides the three R's. To tell them how to take a little sunshine into their dismal homes." She looked like some fair saint with her face illumined with love of humanity.

"Might I venture to suggest that there is plenty of room for sunshine in an old house up the Avenue," said the man wistfully.

The girl looked up quickly—"Don't, Everett, give me six months to see what I can do—then I will answer the question you asked me last night."

"Oh, my dear, my dear," he said, "you do not know how I hate to have you go down there. My sympathy with the great unwashed is not deep enough for me to be willing to have you mingle with them. Then, to be quite honest, I have found them rather a happy lot."

"Listen, Everett," said the girl. "Come down to me a month from to-night and I will show you that I am right and you are wrong."

"A whole month!" the man protested.

"Yes, a whole month—"

The sun was shining into the front windows of a room on the first floor of a high tenement down on the east side. A snow-white bed stood far enough from the wall to allow it to be made up with perfect ease. In front of it stood a screen covered with pretty chintz; white muslin curtains hung at the windows; everything was spotless from the kalsomined ceiling to the oiled floors, where a few bright-colored rugs made walking possible. As Katherine Anderson explained to some scoffing friends who came down to take luncheon with her.

"Everything is clean and in its proper place and the object-lesson is invaluable to these poor children. If you go into their homes you will find that the bed is a bundle of rags in some dark closet, while the front room is kept for company. Here I show them how easily this sunny room is made into a sitting-room by putting that screen in front of the bed and then there is a healthful place to sleep. You may think that I am over-enthusiastic, but I enjoy my classes and I assure you they are all day long, for besides the usual schoolroom work we have cooking classes, physical culture, nature classes and little talks about all sorts of things. I have one girl who I know is going to be a great novelist, she has such an imagination," said Katherine. "Her big sister always has a duplicate of anything of mine the child happens to admire, and the other day she came rushing in with the tale that 'burglars' had broken into their house the night before and stolen twenty bottles of ketchup and 'some preserts.'"

"Had they?" asked the guest. "What peculiar taste in burglary!"

"No," laughed Katherine; "she has no big sister and their house is one back room four flights up."

Four weeks had passed since the Morrison dinner, and Katherine was tired. Then, too, she was not altogether sure that her mission was a success. Was she wishing for the fleshpots of upper Fifth Avenue, or was it just physical weariness that would pass with the night? She had sent off a note in the morning:

"My Dear Everett—The work of the model flat is still in existence, and it is almost a month—a whole month. On Saturday afternoon I am expecting some of the mothers to come and tell me what they think of the work we are doing for their children. They will probably be gone by five o'clock, and if you care to come down at that time I might be induced to go out to dinner with you. Don't bother about a chaperon. As I feel now, I could chaperon a chorus girl myself.

"Cordially,

"Katherine."

Whether the meeting at Mrs. Kelly's had been called together by engraved cards, by postals, or simply by shrieking from one window to another, I do not know, but there was evidently some excitement, some deep feeling which needed expression among the little crowd of women in the fourth floor, back.

"I tell ye," shouted Mrs. Kelly, to make herself heard above the din of many voices, "I tell ye we must organize, an' Tim Kelly himself says it. Only last Satady night, an' him swearin' wid hunger, an' me faintin' wid the big wash I had up the Avenoo, what did we come home to but hull wheat bred an' ags olla Beckymell. There stood my Katy, wid her han's on her hips, a-sayin' as 'teacher said' them things was nourishiner than b'iled cabbage. Well, Tim was that mad he broke every plate on the table an' then went and drank hisself stiff in Casey's saloon."

"And what do ye think," cried Mrs. McGinniss, as Mrs. Kelly stopped for breath, "the other night, when me an' some frinds was comin' in for a quiet avenin', we found my Ellen Addy had hauled the bed into the front room, an' she an' the young ones was all asleep, an' up to the winders was my best petticut cut in two. When I waked her up she whined, 'Teacher says it ain't healthy to sleep in back.' Did ye ever hear the like of that? an' every blessed one of them kids born there!"

"Now, wha' d'ye think o' that?" murmured the crowd.

Mrs. Kelly caught her breath and began again. "I've axed ye to come here because teacher sent word that she'd like the mothers to come of a Satady and tell her how they liked what she was doin' for the young ones. Tim says as they sends a committee from men's meetings, and I think if Mrs. McGinniss, Mrs. McGraw and me was to riprisint this gatherin' we could tell her how we all feels."

It was Saturday afternoon, and the model flat was in perfect order, while the little servant, called "friend" by Miss Anderson, waited in her spotless apron to answer the bell. Another object-lesson for the mothers who were expected. The bell rang and three women walked soberly into the little hall.

"I am so glad to see you, Mrs. Kelly, and you, Mrs. McGinniss." She hesitated at the third name.

"'Tis Mrs. McGraw," said Mrs. Kelly.

"Bring the tea, Louisa," said Miss Anderson, "and then I want to show you how pleasant my home is here."

Mrs. Kelly gave a sniff. "Hum, yessum, it's sunny, but I've seen your home up town, and it's beyond the likes of me to see why you're down here at all, at all."

"Yes," said Mrs. McGinniss, "an' I've come to say that you'd better stay up there an' stop teachin' my childer about their insides. I'm tired of hearin' 'I can't eat this an' I can't eat that, cause teacher says there ain't no food walue.' An' there's Mrs. Polinski, down the street, says she'll have no more foolishness."

Mrs. Kelly had caught her breath again. "Her Rebecca come home only yestidy an' cut all the stitches in Ikey's clo'es, an' him sewed up for the winter."

Just then a woman with a shawl over her head came in without knocking. With a nod to the three women, she faced the teacher. "Now, I'd like to know one thing," she said; "you sent my Josie home this morning to wash the patchouly offen her hair; now, I want to know just one thing—does she come here to be smelt or to be learnt?"

"There's another thing, too," said Mrs. Kelly; "I want that physical torture business stopped. The young ones are tearin' all their clo'es off, an' it's got to be stopped!"

Katherine looked a little dazed and her voice trembled a bit as she said: "Wouldn't you like to look at the flat?"

"No, Miss, we wouldn't," said Mrs. Kelly. "You're a nice young woman, and you don't mean no harm, but it's the sinse av the committee that you're buttin' in. Good day to ye." And they filed slowly out.

Katherine, with cheeks aflame, turned toward the door. There was a twinkle in Landon's eyes as he said:

"Are you quite ready for dinner, dear?"

There was a little break in her voice, and she gave him both her hands.

"Quite ready for—for anything, Everett."

QUIT YO' WORRYIN'

By Anne Virginia Culbertson

 
                       Nigger nuver worry,—
                                  Too much sense fer dat,
                       Let de white folks scurry
                                  Roun' an' lose dey fat,
Nigger gwine be happy, nuver-min'-you whar he at.
 
 
                       Nigger jes' kain't worry,—
                                  Set him down an' try,
                       No use, honey, fer he
                                  Sho' ter close he eye,
Git so pow'ful sleepy dat he pass he troubles by.
 
 
                       Cur'ous, now, dis trouble
                                  Older dat hit grown,
                       'Stid er gittin' double,
                                  Dwinnle ter de bone;
Nigger know dat, so dat why he lef' he troubles 'lone.
 
 
                       Nigger nuver hurry,
                                  Dem w'at wants ter may;
                       Hurry hit mek worry!
                                  Now you year me say
Ain' gwine hurry down de road ter meet ol' Def half-way!
 
 
Den quit yo' hurryin',
Quit yo' worryin'!
W'at de use uv all dis scurryin'?
        Mek ol' Time go sof' an' slow,
        Tell him you doan' want no mo'
Dish yer uverlastin' flurryin',—
Jes' a trick er his fer hurryin'
Folks de faster to'des dey burryin'!
 

HER "ANGEL" FATHER ³

By Elliott Flower

 
"My Papa is an angel now,"
        The little maiden said.
We noted her untroubled brow,
        Her gayly nodding head,
And then, of course, we wondered how
        She could have been misled.
 
 
We felt that she was wrong, and yet
        We spoke in accents low,
For life with perils is beset,
        And friends oft quickly go.
But she was right; he'd gone in debt
        To "back" a burlesque show.
 

ESPECIALLY MEN

By George Randolph Chester

The tantalizing stream on the other side of the hedge seemed, to the hot and tired young man, to lead the way straight into the heart of Paradise itself. Six weary miles of white highway, wavering with heat and misty with hovering dust clouds, still lay between himself and the railroad that would whisk him away to the city. Behind him, conquered at fatiguing cost, were six more miles, stretching back to the village where not even a team could be hired on Sunday. Rather than spend the day in that dismal abode of Puritanism he had fled on foot, his business done, and this little creek, mocking, alluring, irresistible, was the only cheerful thing on which his eyes had rested in that whole stifling journey.

Even this had a drawback. He glanced up again, with a puzzled frown, at the queer sign glaring down at him from the hedge. It was the third one of the sort in the past quarter of a mile:

TRESPASSERS

Are warned from these premises

under penalty of the law

ESPECIALLY MEN

He turned away impatiently. Dust, dust, dust! He could feel it pasty on his tongue, gritty on his lips, grimy on his face. It had stiffened his hair, clogged his nostrils, sifted through his clothing, settled into his shoes. It was everywhere and all-pervading.

The forbidden creek, in the very refinement of derision, suddenly bubbled into a bar of clinking song—a perfect ecstasy of crystal notes—then as suddenly died down, babbling and gurgling, and flowed smoothly on, whispering and murmuring to itself of the delights to come in the heart of the cool woods. Just here, with a swift sweep between mossy, curved banks, the stream turned its back to him and hurried away among the trees with a coy invitation that was well-nigh maddening. He remembered just such a creek as that where, as a boy, he had used to go with his companions after school.

How delightful those boyish swims had been! In fancy he could still feel the chill shock as he had plunged in, the sharp catching of his breath, the resounding splash, the shower of icy drops, the soft yielding of the water—then the delicious buoyancy that had pervaded his limbs. He wondered, with a whimsical smile, how long he could "stay under," and if he could hold his eyes open while he dived, and if he could still swim "dog fashion" and back-handed on his back, and if he could float and tread water and "turtle."

How cool and shady and restful it looked in there! Just before the creek turned behind a clump of dogwood, a patch of sunlight lay on it, shooting down through the misty twilight of broad oak trees, and the surface of the water dimpled and glinted and laughed and flirted at him, before it slipped away into leaf-dimmed sylvan solitudes, in a way that was not to be longer resisted. He gave one more glance of distaste at the white hot road and gave up the struggle.

"Here goes the 'especial man,'" he said, looking up at the sign in smiling defiance, and forced his way through the hedge.

What a coquettish little stream that was! It leaped merrily down tiny, boulder-strewn inclines to show him how light-hearted and care-free it could be; it flowed sedately between narrow banks of turf to display its perfect propriety; it coyly hid behind walls of graceful, slender willows; it danced impudently into the open and dashed across clear spaces in frantic haste to escape him; it spread out, clear and limpid, upon little bars of golden sand, pretending frankly to reveal its pure, inmost depths; then raced on again, ever beckoning, ever enticing, ever cajoling, until at last it plunged straight at a wall of dense, tangled underbrush, and, with a vixenish gurgle of delight at its own blandishing duplicity, vanished underneath the low sweeping mass of leaves without even so much as a good-by!

The pursuer was not to be daunted. Doggedly he fought his way around and through the swampy underbrush and presently stood blinking his delighted eyes in a little natural clearing that was a glorious climax to all the tantalizing coquetry of the creek. Encircled by drooping, long-leaved willows that were themselves enringed by stately trees, lay a broad, deep pool, clear as crystal, one side carpeted with velvety turf and screened with leafy draperies, and the whole canopied by the smiling blue sky. With a cry of pleasure the young man hastily threw off his clothing, and, as he undressed, a school-boy taunt whimsically recurred to him.

"Last one in's a nigger!" he shouted to the squirrel that he caught peering at him from the far side of a limb, and plunged into the pool.

One by one he gleefully tried all the old boyish tricks until at last, tiring of them, he lay floating peacefully on his back, looking up at the sky and covering the entire visible surface of it with air castles, as young men will. There was no dusty road, no broiling hot sun, no six miles of weary distance yet to cover.

There was a rustle and a patter among the trees. Two dogs came bounding to the edge of the water and barked at the bather in friendly fashion. They were bouncing big St. Bernards, but scarcely more than puppies, and they capered and danced in awkward delight when he splashed water at them. As a further evidence of their friendly feeling they suddenly pounced upon his clothing.

"Hey there!" cried the bather, and scrambled out to rescue his apparel. It was kind of him, the dogs thought, to take so much interest in the game, and, not to be outdone in heartiness, they scampered off through the woods, taking the clothes with them. All they left behind was his hat, his shoes and one sock, his collar and cuffs and tie. He threw sticks and stones after them and had started to chase them when a new and dreadful sound smote on his ear. It was the voices of women!

There was but one safe hiding-place—the pool. With rare presence of mind he concealed the pathetic remnant of his belongings and plunged just in time, diving under a clump of low-hanging willows where a friendly root gave support to his arms and breast.

Two elderly ladies of severe and forbidding aspect came slowly within his range of vision. One was tall and thin and the other was short and thin, while both wore plain, skimp, black gowns and had their hair parted in the center and smoothed down flatly over their ears. They were silent with some vexed and weighty problem as they drew near, but, as they came just opposite to him, the taller of the two suddenly burst out with:

"Men, men, men! Nothing but men, morning, noon and night. Please explain, Sister Ann! Where did Adnah, during my brief absence, get her sudden curiosity about the despicable sex?"

"It was the recent visit of Doctor Laura Phelps, Sister Sarah," meekly replied the smaller woman. "She lost a magazine while here and Adnah found it. The publication contained several love stories, so-called, an illustrated article on 'Young Captains of Industry' and another on 'Handsome Young Men of the Stage.' I burned the pernicious thing as soon as it came into my hands, but, alas, the damage had been done!"

"Damage, indeed, Sister Ann!" snapped the other. "Since the age of five, poor Sister Jane's orphan has never been permitted to see a man. Big country girls have even been hired to do our farm work. And this, this is the end of fourteen years of self-sacrificing care!"

The young man in the pool cautiously ducked his head under the water. A mosquito had settled back of his ear and was driving him mad.

"Dreadful!" moaned Sister Ann. "Adnah goes about sighing all the day, and looks over-long in the mirror, and takes unseemly pains with her dressing, and does up her hair with flowers, and has feverishly pink cheeks, and likes to sit in a corner and brood, and takes long walks by herself, and especially, especially, seems fond of moonlight!"

A snake slid down off the bushes into the water near the young man and he "wanted out," but he stayed.

"Moonlight!" sniffed Sarah. "Moonlight!" There is no language to express the disdain with which she spoke this word of philandering and frivolity.

"Moonlight is very pretty," ventured the other. "I rather like it myself."

"At your time of life!" retorted Sister Sarah. "You are too sentimental, Sister Ann, as well as too careless."

Thank Heaven they were going! The young man waited until their voices died in the distance, then crept cautiously to the bank. He had to find those dogs, and in a hurry. He had just seated himself to put on his shoes for the search, when he again heard the voices of women and once more plunged into the pool, like a monster yellow frog, as he reflected he must seem to the squirrel in the tree.

"But, Aunt Matilda, how do you know?" he heard as he came up under the willows. This new voice, sweet and limpid, belonged to a girl of such striking appearance that the young man was on the point of forgetting his dilemma—until that infernal mosquito settled down back of his ear again!

"My dear Adnah," said a jerky little voice in answer, "your aunts, remember, were all young once, and considered great beauties in their day." There was a world of gentle pride in Aunt Matilda's voice as she said this, and it sounded so well that she said it over again. "Great beauties in their day! In consequence they all had their experiences with men, and know that there is not one to be trusted. Not one, my child, not one! Believe your aunts."

"It seems impossible, aunty," declared the soft voice of Adnah. "Why, in that magazine were the pictures of some of the most noble-looking creatures—"

"Tut, tut, child, those are the very worst kind," hastily interrupted Aunt Matilda. "The more handsome they are, the more dangerous. Since you remain so incredulous, however, I suppose I shall have to tell you what we know about them."

The young man in the pool felt his circulation stopping. The two women were calmly sitting down on the bank to talk confidences, and from what he knew of the sex they were as likely as not to sit there until doomsday, compelling him to appear before the angel Gabriel without even a shroud. He was conscious of the beginning of a cramp in his left leg and his shoulders were becoming icy. He had to be motionless, too, and that was another hardship. The least movement might betray him, for the women sat quite near, and Adnah was facing him. Thanks to the thickness of his leafy hiding-place she could not see him, but he could see her quite plainly, and she was well worth looking at. She, too, wore a plain, skimp, black dress, and her brown hair was parted in the center and smoothed down over her ears, but there the resemblance to Aunt Matilda and the others ended, for her hair was wavy in spite of the severely straight brushing, and it glinted gold where little flecks of sunlight filtered through the branches of the tall trees to caress it. In the hair, too, was a single red rose, caught into place with a natural grace that it seemed a pity to waste on three spinster aunts and two dogs, and the same note of color was repeated in another rebellious blossom at the throat. The young face was plump and oval, and the cheeks were pink, the brown eyes were wide and sparkling and—Oh, well, the young man in the pool stopped cataloguing her attractions and simply summed her up as a stunningly pretty girl. Then he tried once more to get rid of that maddening mosquito and wished to high Heaven that they would go!

"When our dear mother died we four girls were all quite young," began Aunt Matilda, pausing primly to smooth down her skirts, and the young man in the watery prison gave up in despair. She was starting out like the old-fashioned story books, which never arrived any place, and never knew how to get back if they did. "Your Aunt Sarah was eighteen years old, your Aunt Ann and myself sixteen, and your poor, deluded mother fourteen. Our father, child, married again within the year, and so you see our acquaintance with the duplicity of men began at a very early age. Of course, we refused to live with a stepmother or to allow her to occupy our own dear mother's house. Left, then, upon our own responsibilities at so tender a period of our lives, it behooved us to conduct ourselves with the strictest of propriety, and I am most happy to say that we came triumphantly through the ordeal. Naturally, we being great beauties in those days, my child, great beauties, many gay young men fluttered about us, and some of them really made quite favorable impressions upon us. There was one in particular—"

Aunt Matilda paused for a sigh and fixed her eyes in sad reminiscence upon a little clump of ferns that, full of conceit, were waving incessant salutes at their dainty reflections in the water.

"Hang the story of her life!" muttered the miserable youth in the pool. His teeth were beginning to chatter.

"Do go on, aunty!" cried the eager Adnah.

"Well, child, they were all alike. Having insinuated their way into our confidences by agreeable manners and by their really indisputable attractiveness, having aroused the beginnings of tender emotions, what did these young men do, one and all? Why, instead of waiting until the acquaintance had ripened into mutual undying affection and then falling gracefully to their knees with honorable proposals of marriage, they one and all chose what seemed to be favorable moments and strove, by cajolery or stealth or even force, to kiss us. To kiss us!"

"Gracious!" exclaimed Adnah.

There was a moment's silence. The young man in the pool could feel the goose-flesh pimpling between his shoulder blades.

"After all, though, it might not have been so very dreadful," finally commented Adnah, after a thoughtful sigh.

"Adnah!" cried the horrified Aunt Matilda. "I am astounded!"

"I can't help it, aunty," said Adnah. "I can't make it seem so terrible, no matter how hard I try. In fact it—it seems to me that it would have been—well—rather nice."

"Adnah!"

"But, aunty, didn't it ever seem that way to you, sometimes?"

Aunt Matilda was shocked and silent for a moment, then over her pale cheeks crept a pink flush.

"I'll not deny," she presently confessed in a hesitant voice, "that if we had not had each other to rely upon for firmness we might perhaps have been deluded by some of these young scapegraces. They were truly quite appealing at times. There was one in particular—"

Again Aunt Matilda became lost in meditation. The young man in the pool swore softly, even though he perceived the tear that trembled upon the lady's eyelash. It was impossible to be sympathetic while a leech was fastened to his ankle.

"My mother must have thought the way I do, I am sure," persisted Adnah. The remark brought Aunt Matilda out of the past with a jerk.

"Your poor mother had the most pitiful experience of all, child," she replied. "She married. Shortly after you were born, she died, fortunately spared all knowledge of your father's faithless fickleness. Adnah, he, too, married again! You, Adnah, was too young to protect yourself from a stepmother, but we came to your rescue. Your great uncle, Peter, had just died and left us this fine estate, and here we are, trying to shield you from the wiles of the destroyer, man!"

"Some men must be nice, or so many, many girls would not want them," commented Adnah, still unconvinced.

"I'll not deny, dear, that some of them seem quite nice," admitted the other with a sigh. "There was one in particular—"

The dogs interrupted at this moment with a racing struggle for some red and brown object.

"Now what has Castor got?" cried Adnah, jumping up to give chase in a healthy and delightful burst of speed.

The youth in the pool dismally realized that Castor had his missing sock, a brown lisle affair with a quaint red pattern in it, at a dollar a pair. His teeth were pounding together like castanets, now, so loudly that he feared Aunt Matilda must surely hear them. Adnah presently returned, flushed rosy red by the exercise and more charming than ever.

"I couldn't catch them," she panted. "Gracious, but I am warm! There is plenty of time for a plunge before dinner. Just wait, Aunt Mattie, until I run for the bathing suits," and she flashed away again.

Great Cæsar's ghost! The hidden youth grew so warm with apprehension that the goose-flesh disappeared and the chattering of his teeth stopped. His dilemma was unspeakable and unsolvable, seemingly, but suddenly it was solved for him. The dogs came back!

The sock had been shredded and they sought fresh diversion. After a cordially barked invitation for the young man to come out and play, they went in after him. There was a tremendous splashing struggle. Suddenly the willows were pulled down by a muscular bare arm, and the face of a young man appeared above it to the astounded gaze of Aunt Matilda.

"Excuse me, madam," he began, lunging viciously at Castor and Pollux with his feet. "Please call off your dogs."

Aunt Matilda, pale but determined, whipped an antiquated monster of a pistol from her pocket, though she held it far off from her and to one side, with no intention, past, present or future, of ever firing it. It got its effectiveness from size alone, and was built for pure moral suasion if ever a pistol was.

"Hold perfectly still or I shall shoot," she quaveringly warned him. "You are a male trespasser, sir!"

"I sincerely regret it, madam," replied the culprit, slapping viciously at the mosquito behind his ear. He got it that time.

"You probably will," freezingly retorted Aunt Matilda. "I shall telephone for the sheriff immediately, and if you are still here when he arrives you shall receive the full penalty of the law."

The young man did some quick thinking. It was necessary.

"Madam, your dogs have stolen my clothing and my money, and I can not leave until I get them back," he presently declared with lucky inspiration. "If you have me arrested for trespass I shall bring suit for the recovery of property."

Aunt Matilda was sufficiently perplexed to lower her pistol and allow him to explain, while she coaxed the dogs out of the water. He was a splendid talker, and had fine, honest-looking blue eyes.

There was a rush of swift footsteps among the trees.

"Hide!" she commanded in sudden panic.

He promptly hid, and when Adnah arrived with the bathing suits, that young lady found her aunt calmly seated on the ground, holding Castor and Pollux each by a dripping collar.

"Leave my suit and return to the house at once with these dogs," directed Aunt Matilda without turning her head.

"Why, Aunt Mattie, what's the matter?"

"Nothing!" snapped Aunt Matilda in desperation. "Go back to the house and stay until I come. Ask no questions."