ntin' for Frank, and not noticin'. How'd
he look, anyway?"

"I don't know; I just saw him half a second. Kind of smiling, and like he
wanted to play."

"Well, I know him," said Dave. "It's the new boy, and the next time I see
him--Oh, hello! There goes our raft!"

It was drifting slowly down towards the edge of the dam, and the boys all
three plunged into the water again, and swam out to it, and climbed up on
it.

They had the greatest kind of a time, and when they had played castaway
sailors, Frank and Jake wanted to send the raft over the edge of the dam;
but Dave said it might get into the head-race of the mill and tangle
itself up in the wheel, and spoil the wheel.

So they took the raft apart and carried the boards on shore, and then
tried to think what they would do next. The first thing was to take off
their clothes and see about drying them. But they had no patience for
that; and so they wrung them out as dry as they could and put them on
again; they had left their roundabouts at Dave's house, anyway, and so had
nothing on but a shirt and trousers apiece. The sun was out hot after the
rain, and their clothes were almost dry by the time they got to Dave's
house. They went with him to the woods-pasture on the way, and helped him
drive home the cows, and they wanted him to get his mother to make his
father let him go up to the Boy's Town with them and see the fireworks;
but he said it would be no use; and then they understood that if a man was
British, of course he would not want his boy to celebrate the Fourth of
July by going to the fireworks. They felt sorry for Dave, but they both
told him that they had had more fun than they ever had in their lives
before, and they were coming the next Fourth and going to bring their guns
with them. Then they could shoot quails or squirrels, if they saw any, and
the firing would celebrate the Fourth at the same time, and his father
could not find any fault.

It seemed to Frank that it was awful to have a father that was British;
but when they got to Dave's house, and his father asked them how they had
spent the afternoon, he did not seem to be so very bad. He asked them
whether they had got caught in the storm, and if that was what made their
clothes wet, and when they told him what had happened, he sat down on the
wood-pile and laughed till he shook all over.

Then Frank and Jake thought they had better be going home, but Dave's
mother would not let them start without