ndles in the bottom of the boat," cut in
Archie. "It's not bad. Only it takes some time next day to get the kinks
out of your legs."

"He's teasing you, my dear," said Mrs. Somers. "We won't be here all
night, but it often happens that we are becalmed for several hours, and
I really don't enjoy the prospect. Come, Will, whistle up the breeze."

"It's Cricket that does that," said Archie; "she always scares the wind
into coming up immediately. There's a puff now. The very mention of
Cricket's whistling does the business."

But the wind only freshened for a moment, then died down, and in ten
minutes more they lay motionless on a glassy sea.

"Now here we'll stay," said Edna with a sigh, "until the sea-breeze
springs up this afternoon at four or five. What time is it now? Two
o'clock! Think of it!"

"The tide takes us along a little," said Mrs. Somers. "If we only had
the other oar now!"

"Scull," suggested Edna.

"Too much work," said Archie; but, nevertheless, he adjusted the oar at
the stern, and sculled a little. The boat moved very slowly forward.

"If we go six feet in an hour, how long will it take us to go seven
miles?" propounded Eunice.

"Those questions are too difficult to be answered off-hand," said Will,
sculling in his turn. "Sounds like Alice in Wonderland. If two boys eat
a turkey at Thanksgiving, how many girls will eat a plum-pudding at
Christmas?"

"I know a better one than that," put in Archie. "Two men set out
simultaneously, at different times, on a journey, both being unable to
travel. For two hours they kept ahead of each other, and then a
snow-storm came up, and they both lost their way. Query: Which got there
first?"

"How silly!" said Edna. "How could they set out simultaneously, at
different times, mamma?"

"That's the question for your deep brain, Miss Wiseacre," said Archie.
"Perhaps you're equal to this. If three men work all day on a fertile
farm, what is the logarithm?"

"The lager-in-'em?" echoed Cricket. "Depends on how much they drank."

Whereupon Mrs. Somers and the boys laughed themselves sore, and the
girls clamoured to know the joke.

"Cricket's a born joke," said Will, resuming his sculling. "You'll be
the death of me, young one."

"I always see jokes when there are any to see," Cricket answered, with
dignity. "You know I do, Mr. Will. I'm not just as worse as Edna."

"Just as bad, you mean," retorted Edna.

"Let's play some games, children," Mrs. Somers sai