om the cow
the amount of milk that they needed, reasoning that she had a better
way of keeping it than they had. The cow's former owner exonerated her
from all blame in the matter, saying that "Rosie" was all right as a
cow; but, of course, she was "no bloomin' refrigerator!"

There was only one day in the week when the Brydon brothers could work
with any degree of enjoyment, and that was on Sunday, when there was
the added zest of wickedness. To drive the oxen up and down the field
in full view of an astonished and horrified neighborhood seemed to take
away in large measure from the "beastliness of labor," and then, too,
the Sabbath calm of the Black Creek valley seemed to stimulate their
imagination as they discoursed loudly and elaborately on the present
and future state of the oxen, consigning them without hope of release
to the remotest and hottest corner of Gehenna. But the complacent old
oxen, graduates in the school of hard knocks and mosquitoes, winked
solemnly, switched their tails and drowsed along unmoved.

The sailors had been doing various odd jobs around the house on Sundays
ever since they came, but had not worked openly until one particular
Sunday in May. All day they hoped that someone would come and stop them
from working, or at least beg of them to desist, but the hot afternoon
wore away, and there was no movement around any of the houses on the
plain. The guardian of the morals of the neighborhood, Mrs. Maggie
Corbett, had taken notice of them all right, but she was a wise woman
and did not use militant methods until she had tried all others; and
she believed that she had other means of teaching the sailor twins the
advantages of Sabbath observance.

About five o'clock the twins grew so uproariously hungry they were
compelled to quit their labors, but when they reached their house they
were horrified to find that a wandering dog, who also had no respect
for the Sabbath, had depleted their "grub-box," overlooking nothing but
the tea and sugar, which he had upset and spilled when he found he did
not care to eat them.

Then it was the oxen's turn to laugh, for the twins' wrath was all
turned upon each other. Everything that they had said about the oxen,
it seemed, was equally true of each other--each of them had confidently
expected the other one to lock the door.

There was nothing to do but to go across to the Black Creek Stopping-
House for supplies. Mrs. Corbett baked bread for them each week.