ws, but perhaps you'd let me qualify by holding Anna Belle. Run and get
into your clothes, Jewel, and I'll find a nice place by that dune over
yonder."

Fifteen minutes afterward the little party were comfortably ensconced in
the shade of the sand hill whose sparse grasses grew tall about them.

Jewel began pulling on them. "You'll never pull those up," remarked Mr.
Evringham. "I believe their roots go down to China. I've heard so."

"Anna Belle and I will dig sometime and see," replied Jewel, much
interested.

"There are only two stories left," said Mrs. Evringham, who was running
over the pages of the book.

"And let grandpa choose, won't you?" said Jewel.

"Oh, yes," and the somewhat embarrassed author read the remaining titles.

"I choose Robinson Crusoe, of course," announced Mr. Evringham. "This is an
appropriate place to read that. I dare say by stretching our necks a little
we could see his island."

"Well, this story is a true one," said Julia. "It happened to the children
of some friends of mine, who live about fifty miles from Chicago." Then
she began to read as follows:--

ROBINSON CRUSOE

"I guess I shall like Robinson Crusoe, mamma!" exclaimed Johnnie Ford,
rushing into his mother's room after school one day.

"You would be an odd kind of boy if you did not," replied Mrs. Ford, "and
yet you didn't seem much pleased when your father gave you the book on your
birthday."

"Well, I didn't care much about it then, but Fred King says it is the best
story that ever was, and he ought to know; he rides to school in an
automobile. Say, when'll you read it to me? Do it now, won't you?"

"If what?" corrected Mrs. Ford.

"Oh, if you please. You know I always mean it."

"No, dear, I don't think I will. A boy nine years old ought to be able to
read Robinson Crusoe for himself."

Johnnie looked startled, and stood on one leg while he twisted the other
around it.

"If you have a pleasant object to work for, it will make it so much the
easier to study," continued Mrs. Ford, as she handed Johnnie the blue book
with a gold picture pressed into its side.

Johnnie pouted and looked very cross. "It's a regular old trap," he said.

[Illustration: TRUDGING ALONG BEFORE HIM]

"Yes, dear, a trap to catch a student;" and pretty Mrs. Ford's low laugh
was so contagious that Johnnie marched out of the room, fearing he might
smile in sympathy; but he soon found that leaving the room was not
escaping from the fa