"Brossard isn't your father," cried Joyce, indignantly, "nor your uncle,
nor your cousin, nor anything else that has a right to shut you up that
way. Isn't there a field with a fence all around it, that you could
drive the goats into for a few hours?"

Jules shook his head.

"Well, I can't have my Thanksgiving spoiled for just a couple of old
goats," exclaimed Joyce. "You'll have to bring them along, and we'll
shut them up in the carriage-house. You come over in about an hour, and
I'll be at the side gate waiting for you."

Joyce had always been a general in her small way. She made her plans and
issued her orders both at home and at school, and the children accepted
her leadership as a matter of course. Even if Jules had not been willing
and anxious to go, it is doubtful if he could have mustered courage to
oppose the arrangements that she made in such a masterful way; but Jules
had not the slightest wish to object to anything whatsoever that Joyce
might propose.

It is safe to say that the old garden had never before even dreamed of
such a celebration as the one that took place that afternoon behind its
moss-coated walls. The time-stained statue of Eve, which stood on one
side of the fountain, looked across at the weather-beaten figure of
Adam, on the other side, in stony-eyed surprise. The little marble satyr
in the middle of the fountain, which had been grinning ever since its
endless shower-bath began, seemed to grin wider than ever, as it watched
the children's strange sport.

Jules dug the little trench according to Joyce's directions, and laid