matter with your face? It looks awful
funny."

"Never mind what it looks like. Tell me what your father said."

[Illustration: "OH, I DON'T KNOW WHAT HE SAID, AND I'VE TOLD YOU TEN
HUNDRED TIMES."]

"Oh, I don't know what he said, and I've told you ten hundred times.
Don't hold my arm so tight; it hurts. Let me go, Neal."

"I won't, till you tell me what he said."

"I'll never tell unless you let go. I'll scream, and people'll know
you're killing me dead, and then you'll get punished."

She opened wide her mouth and gave a long, piercing shriek.

"Oh, hush up!" exclaimed Neal, roughly; "if I let go will you tell me?"

"Yes, if you'll give me that boat. I think I'd like it, after all."

Neal released her and thrust the boat into her hand.

"Now what?" he said.

"Oh, nothing much, except papa came out of the post-office and told
Edith the postmaster man said maybe you'd taken Aunt Betsey's package,
'cause you gave him some gold dollars. And papa said it must have been
my present,'cause you couldn't get gold dollars any other way, no-how,
and papa was mad, I guess, 'cause his face looked the way it does when
some of us chillens is naughty, with his mouth all shut up tight. There,
that's all. Now, Neal, give me the thing Aunt Betsey sent."

"I haven't got it and I never had it. And now good-by to you, every one
of you, forever! Do you hear? Forever! I'm not going to stay another
minute in a place where I'm insulted."

He strode away, and Janet, frightened at she knew not what, sat down on
a rock and began to cry. How very queer Neal was, and how queer his face
looked! She wondered what he was going to do. Perhaps he was going down
to the cellar to smash all the eggs. He looked that way.

She sat there awhile, but it was cool without the red jacket, left on
the other side of the barn-yard--for although it was spring according to
the almanac, there was still a sharpness in the air--and very soon she
too went towards home. She had not found Aunt Betsey's present, after
all, and she had nothing to repay her for her search but a half-made
wooden boat and an aching arm.

And there were those pigs, still at large. She got through safely, but
left the gate open, thereby allowing the animals to escape, and
incurring the wrath of the farmer.

When she reached the house Neal was not to be found. There was no one at
home, for Edith and her father had driven over to Upper Falls on
business, after leaving Janet at the