watching them? There's no sense in THAT."

Dad was immovable.

"Anyway"--whined Joe--" I'M not going--not a night like this--not when I
ain't got boots."

That vexed Dad. "Hold your tongue, sir!" he said--"you'll do as you're
told."

But Dave had n't finished. "I've been following that harrow since sunrise
this morning," he said, "and now you want me to go chasing wallabies about
in the dark, a night like this, and for nothing else but to keep them from
eating the ground. It's always the way here, the more one does the more
he's wanted to do," and he commenced to cry. Mrs. Brown had something to
say. SHE agreed with Dad and thought we ought to go, as the wheat might
spring up again.

"Pshah!" Dave blurted out between his sobs, while we thought of telling
her to shut her mouth.

Slowly and reluctantly we left that roaring fireside to accompany Dad that
bitter night. It WAS a night!--dark as pitch, silent, forlorn and
forbidding, and colder than the busiest morgue. And just to keep wallabies
from eating nothing! They HAD eaten all the wheat--every blade of it--and
the grass as well. What they would start on next--ourselves or the
cart-harness--was n't quite clear.

We stumbled along in the dark one behind the other, with our hands stuffed
into our trousers. Dad was in the lead, and poor Joe, bare-shinned and