ease in the porch hammocks, and received with
marked ungraciousness Peggy's suggestion that he should act as their
guide to some point where the fishing was good.

"I never could get on with swells," said Jerry, with his customary
frankness. "Let 'em fish out of your cistern. Them city dudes will catch
as much there as anywhere."

Peggy restrained her laughter with difficulty. It seemed rather hard
that Graham and Jack, attiring themselves in garments so old as barely
to be presentable should yet be designated by a term of such unbounded
contempt. Privately, Peggy thought Aunt Abigail had come nearer the
mark, and that the boys bore a more striking resemblance to tramps than
to city dudes.

Wisely she made no effort to defend her friends. "Of course, if you are
too busy," she said indifferently, "we can make some other arrangement.
Perhaps Mr. Cole would spare Joe--"

"Oh, I'll take 'em," interrupted Jerry, still sulkily, though he looked
a little ashamed of himself. "I'll show 'em where the fish are, and if
they come home with nothing but their tackle, don't blame me."

But the fishing excursion was more successful than Jerry's gloomy hints
gave ground for anticipating. The boys brought back so many fish that
thrifty Peggy racked her brains to find ways of disposing of them all.
Jerry, for his part, carried home a new idea of "city dudes" and their
ways. These clear-eyed, clean-minded young fellows had not treated him
as an inferior, nor had they committed the offence still less
pardonable, from Jerry's standpoint, of condescending to his level. As
fishermen, too, they had showed no mean skill, and from dislike and
mistrust, Jerry had at length been brought to grudging admiration and
reluctant respect.

The favorable impression was not all on one side, however. As Graham
cleaned his fish--the girls lightening his labors, by sitting around in
an appreciative circle--he suddenly checked his operations to exclaim:
"Say, do you know, that fellow's a wonder!"

"Who? Not Jerry Morton?" Ruth's tone was rather scandalized, for Ruth
did not share Peggy's faculty for finding all kinds of people
interesting, and had a not uncommon weakness for good clothes and
conventional manners.

"Yes, Jerry. Why, he's a walking encyclopedia! He knows everything about
the trees and plants growing around here, except their scientific names.
And it's the same way with birds. He's learned it all first-hand,
instead of out of books, you