what it is, fellers, the girls have got the best of us, and no
mistake."

"The best of us!" growled Si Kelly. "I call it about as mean a thing as
I know of."

" Is it any meaner than what we did to them?"

" Of course it is. They write as if we couldn't afford to pay ten cents
to go to their old party, an' here the most of us have already given
twenty-five cents for our ride. Ag Morrell can have her calico necktie
back, an' I'm goin' to carry it up to her house before I'm an hour
older ."

"I' wouldn't do that," squeaked Winny, who was secretly delighted at
the turn in affairs.
" If she gets to talkin' about the letter you sent you'll have the
worst of it."

Then everybody spoke at the same time until no one could understand
what the other was
saying, and Deacon Littlefield rushed out of the building to save
himself from premature
deafness.

It was some time before anything like order was restored, and then Tom
Hardy said, impatiently:

"Look .here,. fellers, it's no use for us to stand here cawing like a
lot "of crows, when nobody knows what the one next to him is saying. I