asty little Henry Rooter and
their gang. Herbert thinks he hass to act perfectly horrable all the
time, now his voice is changing!" said Florence, her emotion not abated.
"Tried to steal this whole ice-cream freezer off the back porch and
sneak it over the fence and eat it! I stuck a pretty long pin in Herbert
and two more of 'em, every bit as far as it would go." And in the
extremity of her indignation, she added: "The dirty robbers!"

"Did they hurt you?"

"You bet your life they didn't!" the child responded. "Tried to drag me
back to the house! By the feet! I guess I gave 'em enough o' _that_!"

Then, tugging the prostrate freezer into an upright position, she
exclaimed darkly: "I expect I gave ole Mister Herbert and some of the
others of 'em just a few kicks they won't be in such a hurry to forget!"
And in spite of his own gloomy condition, Noble was able, upon thinking
over matters, to spare some commiseration for Herbert and his friend,
that nasty little Henry Rooter and their gang. They seemed to have been
at a disadvantage.

"I suppose I'd better carry the freezer back to the kitchen porch," he
said. "Somebody may want it."

"'Somebody'!" Florence exclaimed. "Why, there's only two of these big
freezers, and if I hadn't happened to suspeck somep'n and be layin' for
those vile thieves, half the party wouldn't get _any_!" And as an
afterthought, when Noble had pantingly restored the heavy freezer to its
place by the kitchen door, she said: "Or else they'd had to have such
little saucers of it nobody would of been any way _like_ satisfied, and
prob'ly all the fam'ly that's here assisting would of had to go without
any at all. That'd 'a' been the worst of it!"

She opened the kitchen door, and to those within explained loudly what
dangers had been averted, directing that both freezers be placed indoors
under guard; then she rejoined Noble, who was walking slowly back to the
front yard.

"I guess it's pretty lucky you happened to be hangin' around out here,"
she said. "I guess that's about the luckiest thing ever happened to me.
The way it looks to me, I guess you saved my life. If you hadn't chased
'em away, I wouldn't been a bit surprised if that gang would killed me!"

"Oh, no!" said Noble. "They wouldn't----"

"You don't know 'em like I do," the romantic child assured him. "I know
that gang pretty well, and I wouldn't been a bit surprised. I wouldn't
been!"

"But----"

She tossed her head, signifying