forward to being a lawyer.

The Twins would go into business, since their father's busy sawmill
property would descend to both of them, and, as they thought it out,
could not very well be divided. Plainly they must make the best of
life together. It promised to be a lively existence, but a pleasant
one withal.

History hoped to be a great writer some day, and Punk would be a
professor of something staid and quiet, Latin most probably.

Sawed-Off and Jumbo had not made up their minds as to just what
the future was to hold for them, but they agreed, that it must be
something in partnership.

Sleepy had never a fancy of what coming years should bring him to do;
he preferred to postpone the unpleasant task of making up his mind,
and only took the trouble to hope that the future would give him
something that offered plenty of time for sleeping and eating.

Late into the night the Twelve sat around a waving bonfire, their eyes
twinkling at the memory of old victories and defeats, of struggles
that were pleasant, whatever their outcome, just because they were
struggles.

At length Sleepy got himself to his feet with much difficulty.

"Going to bed?" Jumbo sang out.

"Nope," drawled Sleepy, and disappeared into the darkness.

They all smiled at the thought of him, whom none of them respected and
all of them loved.

In a space of time quite short for him, Sleepy returned with an
arm-load of books--the text-books that had given him so much trouble,
and would have given him more had they had the chance offered them.

"Fire's getting low," was all he said, and he dumped the school-books,
every one, into the blaze.

The other Lakerimmers knew that they had passed every examination,
either brilliantly or, at the worst, well enough to scrape through.
Sleepy did not even know whether he had failed or not; but the next
morning he found out that he should sadly need next year those books
that were charred ashes in a corner of the campus, and should have to
replace them out of his spending-money.

That night, however, he was blissful with ignorance, and having made
a pyre of his bookish tormentors, he fell in with the jollity of the
others.

When it grew very late silence gradually fell on the gossipy Twelve.
The beauty of the night and the union of souls seemed to be speech
enough.

Finally the fire fell asleep, and with one mind they all rose and,
standing in a circle about glimmering ashes, clasped hands in eternal