touches them. You must be mistaken, my boy."

"No, I'm not," said Dick, obstinately. "The minister's wife said it was,
and she asked me if I wouldn't have some, and I said I was going over to
the Peppers to breakfast; I'd rather have some of theirs. And Grandpapa
said it was good--the ham and fried eggs was--and he took it twice; he
did, Mrs. Pepper."

"Took it twice?" she repeated, faintly, with troubled visions of the
future. "Well, well, the mischief is done now, so there is no use in
talking about it; but I'm worried, all the same."

"Hurry up, Percy," called Joel across the table, "and don't dawdle so.
We're going to make a double ripper, four yards long, to go down that
hill there." He laid down his spoon to point out the window at a distant
snow-covered slope.

Percy shivered, but recalling himself in time, said "Splendid," and
addressed himself with difficulty to his mush.

"Well, you'll never be through at that speed," declared Joel. "See I've
eaten three saucerfuls," and he handed his plate up, "And now for the
fourth, Mamsie."

"Oh! baked potatoes," cried Ben, rolling one around in his hand before
he took off its crackling skin. "Weren't they good, though, with a
little salt. I tell you, they helped us to chop wood in the old times!"

"I really think I shall have to try one," said Percy, who deeply to his
regret was obliged to confess that Indian meal mush had few charms for