Ben begin to cut up such capers that even a party of dignified hens,
going down the avenue to bed, paused to look on with clucks of
astonishment, evidently fancying that salt had set him to fluttering and
tumbling as it did them. Never had the old gate beheld such antics,
though it had seen gay doings in its time; for of all the boys who had
climbed over it, not one had ever stood on his head upon each of the big
balls which ornamented the posts, hung by his heels from the arch, gone
round and round like a wheel with the bar for an axis, played a tattoo
with his toes while holding on by his chin, walked about the wall on his
hands, or closed the entertainment by festooning himself in an airy
posture over the side of the lantern frame, and kissing his hand to the
audience as a well-bred Cupid is supposed to do on making his bow.

The little girls clapped and stamped enthusiastically, while Sancho, who
had been calmly surveying the show, barked his approval as he leaped up
to snap at Ben's feet.

"Come down and tell what you did up at the Squire's. Was he cross? Did
you have to work hard? Do you like it?" asked Bab, when the noise had
subsided.

"It's cooler up here," answered Ben, composing himself in the frame, and
fanning his hot face with a green spray broken from the tall bushes
rustling odorously all about him. "I did all sorts of jobs. The old
gentleman wasn't cross; he gave me a dime, and I like him first-rate.
But I just hate 'Carrots; ' he swears at a feller, and fired a stick of
wood at me. Guess I'll pay him off when I get a chance."

Fumbling in his pocket to show the bright dime, he found the torn page,
and remembered the thirst for information which had seized him in the