eel quite uncomfortable now from the smell of George's clothes,"
said Annie.

"The worst of it too, is, that you can't get rid of it; no washing will
take it away."

And so it proved; for notwithstanding repeated washing and airings, that
suit of George's was so offensive that he could no longer wear it; and
as everything placed near it was infected, it was at last burnt.

Tom stopped up every cranny of the hen-house which looked in the least
dangerous, with such neatness and skill that his father and uncle were
quite pleased.

Annie and George were watching him finish his job, when Uncle John came
up with what looked like a large, green grasshopper, which he had caught
on a sycamore.

"Here, Annie," cried he, "is one of the fellows that make such a
grating, knife-grinding sort of noise every night."

"I thought you said the little tree-toads made it, uncle."

"The tree-toads and the katydids too. This is a katydid, or, perhaps, a
katydidn't; for people say they are divided in opinion, and that as soon
as one party begins to cry 'katydid,' the other shrieks louder still
'katydidn't,' which accounts for the noise they make."

"Oh, uncle! do they really?" cried George.

"You must listen, Georgy," replied his uncle, laughing.

"When we first came here" remarked Tom, "mother could not sleep for the
noise they and the tree-toads made."

"The voice of the tree-toad is very loud for so small a creature, but
the katydid has really no voice at all."

"No voice, uncle?"

"No, Annie; the chirp of all kinds of grasshoppers is produced by their
thighs rubbing against their wing-cases."

"How very curious!" exclaimed the children, and the katydid was examined
with still greater interest before it was released to rejoin its
companions on the sycamore.

* * * * *

"What do you think of our building a boat, Tom?" said his uncle to him,
a few days after he had finished the hen-house. "It seems to me that you
and I could manage it. What do you say?"

"Oh! capital!" cried Tom, with delight; "I'm sure we could! let's begin
to-day!"

"Well, we'll try at any rate. When you have driven out the cows, come to
me at the fences."

"Where there's a will there's a way," was Uncle John's favorite maxim,
and certainly he had reason to believe in the truth of it, for he
succeeded in everything he undertook. The boat was no exception: it was
built in a wonderfully short time, and launched one fine day in