"Humph!" as he thrust his tousled head into the cupboard, and
searched for butter, and ran his dirty hands all over the clean,
bare shelves--"well, this will keep me from starving." So he
rolled the towel as tightly as he could over the bread, and
slouched off, shaking his fist at Joel with a parting scowl.

"Now, Phronsie, I can't play another single time," said Polly.
"I must see where Joel is." So she dropped the fat little hand
and raced off, the other children after her.

"Joel--Joel--" they all cried, and just then Mamsie was coming
down the road--oh! so tired, as she had had to stay later than
usual, for the Conference was to meet at the minister's house
next day, and besides the study carpet to be put down, there
were ever and ever so many things to be done. But she had an
extra quarter of a dollar in her pocket, and Polly was to run over
after the Conference dinner and get a basket of the eatables.
"If they leave any," Miss Jerusha, the minister's sister, had said
grimly, "which isn't very likely. I've heard 'em preach often enough
of starved souls. La! 'tisn't a circumstance to the starved bodies
they bring along to Conference." So Mrs. Pepper was turning in
at the dooryard of the little brown house in a happy frame of mind,
when she heard a babel of voices, and Phronsie's little shrill voice
above them all.

"Goodness me, the house must be afire!" she exclaimed, hurrying
over the grass and in at the door. There was Joel, tied hand and
foot, his black eyes blazing, while he was talking as fast as he
could rattle, and Polly was untying the clothes-line, little