for the world would he have had the small
child know how those words thrilled him.

"Dorothy Reed said it! It sounds like her," was Ben's ecstatic thought;
but to poor Fandy's surprise and disappointment, he only muttered aloud:
"There, there, that's a good little boy. Go and play!"

[Illustration: BEN'S CIDER EXPERIENCE.]

Many a time after that, in the sanctity of the lonely fields, did Ben,
rather sheepishly, repeat to himself the bewitching phrase:

"How _splendid_ your brother Ben can row!"

Judge, then, of his feelings, when one Sunday in September, Master Fandy
whispered to him, rather loudly, while coming out of church, "There she
is" (pointing to a pretty little tot of seven summers)--"that's the very
girl who said it!"

Ben stared at her, speechless with disgust.

"I might have known," he thought, "that the little goose would call a
baby like that, a girl!"

So much for Ben's private feelings. Concerning the race, the six--among
themselves--enjoyed exceedingly the unexpected recoil of their little
joke. I say six, for in this matter Ed Tyler was unanimously suspected
by the others of being on the fence. They never could tell whether he
was laughing at them or with them. Donald was sure that it was the very
best thing he ever heard of in his life. Outcalt protested he wouldn't
have missed it for the world; and Ben Buster, laughing rather ruefully,
declared that he never knew the "beat of it" but once; and that was one
day when he had slipped into Jones's cider-yard and taken a good, long
drink, through a straw, from a barrel marked "sweet cider," as he
thought. "I tell you, fellows," was Ben's concluding remark, "if I
wasn't sold that time, I'll give in. I was so warm and thirsty that I
took a good, long pull before I found out that it wasn't cider at all,
but vinegar, sour enough to take a man's head off. What made it worse
was, the barrel was marked 'sweet-cider vinegar,' after all. It's a
blamed shame the way a fellow gets caught sometimes!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

YANKEE AND DOODLE.

DONALD and Dorothy exchanged but four words on the subject of the sham
race after it was over, but these were very expressive:

_Donald._ "Well, madam!"

_Dorothy._ "Well, sir!"

Their sparkling looks, Donald's tone of accusation and injured
innocence, Dorothy's playful, rather defiant, air of triumph, said the
rest. Uncle George, who was present at the interview, having previously
heard both sides of the st