airs.

He seemed excited and nervous, and kept saying "'Sh!" though there was
no one stirring in the house. But it was like Cosy to have some
mysterious scheme on foot. Amasa thought that he had at last discovered
how Pember Tibbetts made his musk-rat traps, or guessed the conundrum in
the _County Clarion_, for which intellectual feat a prize of five
dollars was offered. Or perhaps he had secured the job of weeding Mr.
Luke Mellon's onion bed and hoeing his string-beans; last year he was
paid three dollars for the job, and hired Amasa to do the work for
seventy-five cents. Amasa stoutly resolved not to be the victim of
Cosy's sharp business methods this year.

But Cosy's shrewd gray eyes had a twinkle that meant more than
onion-weeding or any "jobs."

"That was an awful nice composition that your sister wrote," he said, in
an easy, complimentary manner.

Amasa nodded, brightening; it was more like Cosy to make a fellow feel
small about his sisters and all his possessions.

"Folks are saying that she'll get the Pine Bank School, if Elkanah Rice,
that's school committee, _does_ want it for his niece. A good thing,
too, for Lizette is pretty well worn out taking care of you all." Cosy
wagged his head with great solemnity. "Aunt Lucretia said she shouldn't
be surprised if she got consumptive, like her mother, if she worked too
hard."

Amasa's heart seemed to stop beating, and a choking lump came into his
throat.

"But Viola'll get the school fast enough," continued Cosy, "if--if folks
don't find out that she copied the composition."

"Copied the composition!" Amasa's brows came together in a fierce scowl,
and he arose from the side of the bed where he was sitting, and advanced
upon Cosy with a threatening gesture.

"Now just look here before you go to making a turkey-cock of yourself,"
said Cosy, drawing a newspaper from his pocket. "I happened to go down
to Gilead this afternoon to swap roosters with Uncle Hiram--made him
throw in a pullet and a watering-pot because my rooster had a bigger
top-knot than his. There was a pile of newspapers in the wood-shed, and
I went to get one to wrap up some things that Aunt M'lissy was sendin'
to mother, and I came across this. 'School-girl Friendships' caught my
eye. See! it's signed 'Lilla Carryl.' Aunt M'lissy said she believed
'twas a girl over to Gilead Ridge. That paper is two years old now, and
Gilead being ten miles away, I suppose Viola thought nobody would ever
fin