all. I believe I can get to
heaven by myself."

"You'll go to the other place if you break the Sabbath day," said
unhappy Dora, following him sorely against her will.

But Davy was not scared--yet. Hell was very far off, and the delights of
a fishing expedition with the Cottons were very near. He wished Dora
had more spunk. She kept looking back as if she were going to cry every
minute, and that spoiled a fellow's fun. Hang girls, anyway. Davy did
not say "darn" this time, even in thought. He was not sorry--yet--that
he had said it once, but it might be as well not to tempt the Unknown
Powers too far on one day.

The small Cottons were playing in their back yard, and hailed Davy's
appearance with whoops of delight. Pete, Tommy, Adolphus, and Mirabel
Cotton were all alone. Their mother and older sisters were away. Dora
was thankful Mirabel was there, at least. She had been afraid she would
be alone in a crowd of boys. Mirabel was almost as bad as a boy--she was
so noisy and sunburned and reckless. But at least she wore dresses.

"We've come to go fishing," announced Davy.

"Whoop," yelled the Cottons. They rushed away to dig worms at once,
Mirabel leading the van with a tin can. Dora could have sat down and
cried. Oh, if only that hateful Frank Bell had never kissed her! Then
she could have defied Davy, and gone to her beloved Sunday School.

They dared not, of course, go fishing on the pond, where they would be
seen by people going to church. They had to resort to the brook in the
woods behind the Cotton house. But it was full of trout, and they had a
glorious time that morning--at least the Cottons certainly had, and
Davy seemed to have it. Not being entirely bereft of prudence, he had
discarded boots and stockings and borrowed Tommy Cotton's overalls. Thus
accoutered, bog and marsh and undergrowth had no terrors for him. Dora
was frankly and manifestly miserable. She followed the others in their
peregrinations from pool to pool, clasping her Bible and quarterly
tightly and thinking with bitterness of soul of her beloved class where
she should be sitting that very moment, before a teacher she adored.
Instead, here she was roaming the woods with those half-wild Cottons,
trying to keep her boots clean and her pretty white dress free from
rents and stains. Mirabel had offered the loan of an apron but Dora had
scornfully refused.

The trout bit as they always do on Sundays. In an hour the transgressors
had all the