something to eat; and she cut them
each a slice of bread the whole width and length of the loaf, and spread
the slices with butter, and then apple-butter, and then brown sugar. The
boys thought they were not hungry, but when they began to eat they found
out that they were, and before they knew it they had eaten the slices all
up. Dave's mother said they must come and see Dave again some time, and
she acted real clever; she was an American, anyway.

They got their horses and started home. It was almost sundown now, and
they heard the turtle-doves cooing in the woods, and the bob-whites
whistling from the stubble, and there were so many squirrels among the
trees in the woods-pastures, and on the fences, that Frank could hardly
get Jake along; and if it had not been for Jake's horse, that ran whenever
Frank whipped up his pony, they would not have got home till dark. They
smelt ham frying in some of the houses they passed, and that made them
awfully hungry; one place there was coffee, too.

When they reached Frank's house he found that his mother had kept supper
hot for him, and she came out and said Jake must come in with him, if his
family would not be uneasy about him; and Jake said he did not believe
they would. He tied his horse to the outside of the cow-house, and he came
in, and Frank's mother gave them as much baked chicken as they could hold,
with hot bread to sop in the gravy; and she had kept some coffee hot for
Frank, so that they made another good meal. They told her what a bully
time they had had, and how they had fallen into the dam; but she did not
seem to think it was funny; she said it was a good thing they were not all
drowned, and she believed they had taken their deaths of cold, anyway.
Frank was afraid she was going to make him go up stairs and change his
clothes, when he heard the boys begin to sound their call of "Ee-o-wee" at
the front door, and he and Jake snatched their hats and ran out. There
was a lot of boys at the gate; Hen Billard was there, and Archy Hawkins
and Jim Leonard; there were some little fellows, and Frank's cousin Pony
was there; he said his mother had said he might stay till his father came
for him.

Hen Billard had his thumb tied up from firing too big a load out of his
brass pistol. The pistol burst, and the barrel was all curled back like a
dandelion stem in water; he had it in his pocket to show. Archy Hawkins's
face was full of little blue specks from pouring powder on a