en?--No! A thousand times No!

"Calvin," I said sternly, "aren't you ashamed to use such
language--before me--and before your little sister?"

But here the little sister sank beneath her true woman's level by
saying:--

"I know worse than that--Dut!"

With a look of deadly coldness I sought to chill the pride that shone in
her eyes as she achieved this new enormity.

"What is 'Dut'?" I asked severely.

"Dut is--is _a_ Dut," she answered, somewhat abashed by my want of
enthusiasm.

"A Dut is a baddix--a regular baddix," volunteered her brother.
Following a device familiar to philologists, he submitted concrete
examples.

"Two of those Sullivans are Duts, and so's Mrs. Sullivan sometimes when
she makes me split kindling and let the cat alone and--"

"That will do," I said; "that's enough of such talk. Come right into the
house."

"It ain't a baddix to say 'O Crackers!'" he observed tentatively, as he
followed us.

"It may not be for some people," I answered. "Nice people might say that
once in a great while, on week-days, if they never said any other
baddixes; but it's just as bad as any of them if you say all the
others--especially that horrible one--"

"Gamboge," he reminded me, brightly.

"Never mind saying it again!"

Then came a new uproar from the wagon-box. We perceived that the train
had moved off again, manned now entirely by Sullivans. They sought, I
detected, to produce in our minds an impression that the thing was going
better than ever. The toots of the Sullivan-throated whistle were louder
and more frequent, and the voice of the largest could be plainly heard.
He had combined the two offices of train-boy and conductor. We heard him
alternately demanding "Tickets!" and urging "Peanuts, cakes, and
candies!" If the intention had been to lure us back to witness a
Sullivan triumph, it failed. We shut our lips tightly and moved around
to the front porch.

The foiled Sullivans presently followed us here. They made a group at
the base of a maple on the lawn and, affecting not to notice us, talked
in a large, loud way so that we must overhear and be made envious,--even
awe-struck; for they had all secured jobs on the real railroad, it
appeared. They would have to begin to-morrow, probably. They didn't know
for sure, but they thought it would be to-morrow. It would be fine,
riding off on the big train. Probably they would never come back to this
town, but sleep on their big engine every night; and