favorite pastime of pulling Betty's braids and asking if she was at
home.

"I'll come over there and crook fingers on the bargain," said Ben,
settling the rail and running over it to the tuft, then bridging another
pool and crossing again till he came to the stump.

"I never thought of that way," said Sam, watching him with much inward
chagrin at his own failure.

"I should think you'd written 'Look before you leap,' in your copy-book
often enough to get the idea into your stupid head. Come, crook,"
commanded Ben, leaning forward with extended little finger. Sam
obediently performed the ceremony, and then Ben sat astride one of the
horns of the stump while the muddy Crusoe went slowly across the rail
from point to point till he landed safely on the shore, when he turned
about and asked with an ungrateful jeer,--

"Now what's going to become of you, old Look-before-you-leap?"

"Mud turtles can only sit on a stump and bawl till they are taken off,
but frogs have legs worth something, and are not afraid of a little
water," answered Ben, hopping away in an opposite direction, since the
pools between him and Sam were too wide for even his lively legs.

Sam waddled off to the brook in the lane to rinse the mud from his
nether man before facing his mother, and was just wringing himself out
when Ben came up, breathless but good natured, for he felt that he had
made an excellent bargain for himself and friends.

"Better wash your face; it's as speckled as a tiger-lily. Here's my
handkerchief if yours is wet," he said, pulling out a dingy article
which had evidently already done service as a towel.

"Don't want it," muttered Sam, gruffly, as he poured the water out of
his muddy shoes.

"I was taught to say 'Thanky' when folks got me out of scrapes. But
you never had much bringing up, though you do 'live in a house with a
gambrel roof,'" retorted Ben, sarcastically quoting Sam's frequent
boast; then he walked off, much disgusted with the ingratitude of man.

Sam forgot his manners, but he remembered his promise, and kept it so
well that all the school wondered. No one could guess the secret of
Ben's power over him, though it was evident that he had gained it in
some sudden way, for at the least sign of Sam's former tricks Ben would
crook his little finger and wag it warningly, or call out "Bulrushes!"
and Sam subsided with reluctant submission, to the great amazement of
his mates. When asked what it meant, Sa, turned