"Well--" she considered thoughtfully, "there's 'The Story of Amelia',
and the story of 'The Boy Who Didn't Pass', and the one of 'Old '61'--",

"Oh, tell us--tell us!" Billy pleaded, and would not be refused. It was
never easy to refuse Billy. She had her way this time, and there in the
mellow night-light, with soft night-noises all about them, T.O. told her
stories. She had never told a story before in her life, and her voice at
first stumbled diffidently, but as she went on, a queer thing
happened--she did not seem to be telling it herself, but the little old
woman who loved Amelia seemed to be telling it! Then the Boy Who Didn't
Pass, then Old '61, in his tremulous, halting old voice.

They listened in perfect silence, and even after the stories ended they
said nothing. Billy, quite unashamed, was crying over poor Old '61.

"You'd have thought, wouldn't you," T.O. murmured after a while, "that
places like this would be humdrum-y and commonplace? But I guess there
are 'stories' everywhere. I'm beginning to find out things, girls."

The next day began in earnest the long-yearned-for time of rest. It was
decided unanimously over the breakfast cups, to live and move, eat and
all but sleep, out of doors. To devote four separate and four combined
energies to having a good time. To abide by the rules and regulations
of the Wicked Compact--long live the Wicked Compact! Laura Ann made an
illuminated copy of it, framed it in a border of hurriedly-painted
forget-me-nots and hung it on the screen door, where they could not help
seeing it and "remembering their vows," Laura Ann said. It was a matter
of gay conjecture with them who would be the first to break the Compact.