ne else in this place."

"I don't understand one peck of all your bushel," answered Barefoot.
"Speak out--I'm too old to guess riddles now."

"Well, I'm going to uncle in America."

"Indeed? Going to start to-day?" said Barefoot, laughing. "Do you remember
how Martin, the mason's boy, once called up to his mother through the
window: 'Mother, throw me out a clean pocket-handkerchief--I'm going to
America!' Those who were going to fly so quickly are all still here."

"You'll see how much longer I shall be here," said Damie; and without
another word he went into Coaly Mathew's house.

Barefoot felt like laughing at Damie's ridiculous plan, but she could
not; she felt that there was some meaning in it. And that very night,
when everybody was in bed, she went to her brother and declared once for
all that she would not go with him. She thought thus to conquer him; but
Damie replied quickly:

"I'm not tied to you!" and became the more confirmed in his plan.

Then there suddenly welled up in the girl's mind once more all that
flood of reflections that had come upon her once in her childhood; but
this time she did not ask advice of the tree, as if it could have
answered her. All her deliberations brought her to this one conclusion:
"He's right in going, and I'm right, too, in staying here." She felt
inwardly glad that Damie could make such a bold resolve--at any rate, it
showed manly determination. And although she felt a deep sorrow at the
thought of being henceforth alone in the wide world, she nevertheless
thought it right that her brother should thrust forth his hand thus
boldly and independently.

Still, she did not yet quite believe him. The next evening she waited
for him and said:

"Don't tell anybody about your plan to emigrate, or you'll be laughed at
if you don't carry it out."

"You're right," answered Damie; "but it's not for that. I'm not afraid
to bind myself before other people; so surely as I have five fingers on
this hand, so surely shall I go before the cherries are ripe here, if I
have to beg, yes, even to steal, in order to get off. There's only one
thing I'm sorry about--and that is that I must go away without playing
Scheckennarre a trick that he'd remember to the end of his days."

"That's the true braggart's way! That's the real way to ruin!" cried
Barefoot; "to go off and leave a feeling of revenge behind one! Look,
over yonder lie our parents. Come with me--come with me to their graves
and