to break up our encampment. We determined that we would pack everything
in John's wagon, and let him take the load to his house, and keep
it there until Monday, when I would have the tent and accompaniments
expressed to their owner. We would go home and join our friends. It
would not be necessary to say where we had been.

It was hard for us to break up our camp. In many respects we had enjoyed
the novel experience, and we had fully expected, during the next week,
to make up for all our short-comings and mistakes. It seemed like losing
all our labor and expenditure, to break up now, but there was no help
for it. Our place was at home.

We did not wish to invite our friends to the camp. They would certainly
have come had they known we were there, but we had no accommodations for
them, neither had we any desire for even transient visitors. Besides,
we both thought that we would prefer that our ex-boarder and his wife
should not know that we were encamped on that little peninsula.

We set to work to pack up and get ready for moving, but the afternoon
passed away without bringing old John. Between five and six o'clock
along came his oldest boy, with a bucket of water.

"I'm to go back after the milk," he said.

"Hold up!" I cried. "Where is your father and his wagon? We've been
waiting for him for hours."

"The horse is si---- I mean he's gone to Ballville for oats."

"And why didn't he send and tell me?" I asked.

"There wasn't nobody to send," answered the boy.

"You are not telling the truth," exclaimed Euphemia; "there is always
some one to send, in a family like yours."

To this the boy made no answer, but again said that he would go after
the milk.

"We want you to bring no milk," I cried, now quite angry. "I want you to
go down to the station, and tell the driver of the express-wagon to come
here immediately. Do you understand? Immediately."

The boy declared he understood, and started off quite willingly. We
did not prefer to have the express-wagon, for it was too public a
conveyance, and, besides, old John knew exactly how to do what was
required. But we need not have troubled ourselves. The express-wagon did
not come.

When it became dark, we saw that we could not leave that night. Even if
a wagon did come, it would not be safe to drive over the fields in
the darkness. And we could not go away and leave the camp-equipage. I
proposed that Euphemia should go up to the house, while I remained in
camp