yere, and then play robbers. This'll be the den"; and he put the candle
into the neck of an old bottle.

I said, "Oh, George, Aunty Edith doesn't let you have matches." George
said, "Look yere, these matches was give me to-day, and this ain't Miss
Edith's barn. If these young gemmun is willing to play in their father's
barn with a candle, you ain't got no call to say anything, has yer?" And
the boys said, "Aw, it's all right. Come on. William ain't yer boss.
He's nothing but a kid anyway."

Well, that made me mad, and I wouldn't play robbers with them, and I
slid down to the barn floor, and went to the door, and looked out to see
if it was getting any lighter. But George, he put on a terrible look,
and began to say, "I'm the King of the Robbers, who's this yere
a-peekin' and a-spyin' in my den?" Then Sam called out, "It's me. I'm
the King of the Pirates, and I've come to take ye bound hand and foot to
my ship. Stand by, men!" "Men" was his brother Charlie, and they made a
dash at George. He danced and flew at them with a stick and called to me
to come and be his man and help him fight 'em off.

I was just running to do it, for it looked like pretty good fun, and the
rain was pretty hard, when somebody knocked the bottle with their foot,
and over it went into a heap of straw, and before the boys could race
back and put it out, the hay was on fire.

Oh, dear! I hope I never see anything like that again. We boys were so
scared at first, we couldn't move, and then, with a yell, the Crosscup
boys ran to tell their father, with me and George after them.

[Illustration: We all worked with hose and everything.]