No. 4 (Madge) ... gossip.
No. 5 (Bell) ... versify.
No. 6 (Jack) ... illustrate

So, my dear, if you get any 'information' or happen to be 'edified'
by what I write, don't mention it for worlds! (I just screamed my
fears about this matter to Jack, and he says 'I needn't fret.' I
shall certainly slap that boy before the summer is over.)

I could just tell you a lovely story about Dicky's getting lost in
the woods the day before yesterday, and our terrible fright about
him, and how we all joined in the boy-hunt, until Geoff and Bell
found him at the Lone Stump; but I suppose the chronicle belongs to
Phil's province, so I desist. But what can I say? Suppose I tell
you that Uncle Doc and the boys have been shooting innocent, TAME
sheep, skinning and cutting them up on the way home, and making us
believe for two days that we were eating venison; and we never should
have discovered the imposition had not Dicky dragged home four sheep-
skins from the upper pool, and told us that he saw the boys 'PEELING
THEM OFF A VENISON.' Perhaps Phil may call this information, and
Margery will vow that it is gossip and belongs to her; any way, they
consider it a splendid joke, and chuckle themselves to sleep over it
every night; but I think the whole affair is perfectly maddening, and
it makes me boil with rage to be taken in so easily. Such a to-do as
they make over the matter you never saw; you would think it was the
first successful joke since the Deluge. (That wasn't a DRY joke, was
it? Ha, ha!)

This is the way they twang on their harp of a thousand strings. At
breakfast, this morning, when Jack passed me the corn-bread, I said