he measliest tales they is. I'll come if she'll read my Uncle
Remus book."

"Please come on," begged Billy, dropping the patronizing manner that he
had assumed, in hope of inducing his chum to share his martyrdom. "You
know Aunt Minerva'd die in her tracks 'fore she'd read Uncle Remus.
You'll like these-here tales 'nother sight better anyway. I'll give you
my stoney if you'll come."

"Naw; you ain't going to get me in no such box as that. If she'd just
read seven or eight hours I wouldn't mind; but she'll get you where she
wants you and read 'bout a million hours. I know Miss Minerva."

Billy's aunt was growing impatient.

"Come, William," she called. "I am waiting for you."

Jimmy went back to his own porch and the other boy joined his kinswoman.

"Why wouldn't Jimmy come?" she asked.

"He--he ain't feeling very well," was the considerate rejoinder.

"Once there was a little boy who was born in Virginia--" began Miss
Minerva.

"Born in a manger," repeated the inattentive little boy to himself, "I
knows who that was." So, this important question settled in his mind, he
gave himself up to the full enjoyment of his chum and to the giving and
receiving secret signals, the pleasure of which was decidedly enhanced
by the fear of imminent detection.

"Father, I can not tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet,--" read
the thin, monotonous voice at his elbow.

Billy laughed aloud--at that minute Jimmy was standing on his head
waving two chubby feet in the air.

"William," said his aunt reprovingly, peering at him over her
spectacles, "I don't see anything to laugh at,"--and she did not, but
then she was in ignorance of the little conspiracy.

"He was a good and dutiful son and he studied his lessons so well that
when he was only seventeen years old he was employed to survey vast
tracts of land in Virginia--"

Miss Minerva emphasized every word, hoping thus to impress her nephew.
But he was so busy, keeping one eye on her and one on the little boy on
the other porch, that he did not have time to use his ears at all and so
did not hear one word.

"Leaving his camp fires burning to deceive the enemy, he stole around by
a circuitous route, fell upon the British and captured--"

Billy held up his hands to catch a ball which Jimmy made believe to
throw.

Miss Minerva still read on, unconscious of her nephew's inattention:

"The suffering at Valley Forge had been intense during the winter--"

Billy made a p