e or other; and one day the third officer, Mr. Thorpe, got riled
with him, and called him a confounded young bear.

"'Well,' says the mid, quick as winkin', 'if _I_'m a bear, _you_'re not
fit to carry bones to a bear, anyhow.'

"'What! what!' cries Thorpe--'mutiny, as I live! You whelp, I'll teach
you to talk that way to _me_!' and off he goes to the Cap'n, and reports
him for disrespect to his superior officer.

"Well, the Cap'n calls up Mr. Middy, and tells him this sort o' thing
won't do nohow, and he must either 'pologize or leave the ship. So the
mid takes off his cap with a reg'lar dancin'-school bow, and says, 'Mr.
Thorpe, I said just now that you were not fit to carry bones to a bear;
I was wrong, and willingly apologize, for I now see that you _are_ fit
to carry them.'

"'Sir,' begins the Cap'n, in a voice like a nor'east gale.

"'Oh, Cap'n Mayne,' says Thorpe (who warn't bright 'nuff to see the
joke), 'if the young gentleman sees his error, and takes back his words,
I'm satisfied.'

"'Well,' says the Cap'n, bitin' his lips to keep from laughin', 'if
_you_'re satisfied, _I_ am; but catch me ever trying to get an apology
out of a midshipman again!'"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.

BY EDWARD CARY.

CHAPTER IV.

In the last chapter I told you how Washington kept the British out of
Philadelphia during the winter of 1776 and 1777. The next year the
British came around from New York by water with a large and fine army.
Washington's army was badly trained, and many of them were new men. A
bloody battle was fought below Philadelphia, on the Brandywine Creek,
and the Americans were divided and beaten. The British marched into
Philadelphia, and in spite of all that Washington could do, staid there
that winter, and the Americans went into camp at Valley Forge, some
twenty miles away. It was a terrible winter, and often the soldiers were
"barefoot and otherwise naked," as Washington wrote to Congress, and
food was often very hard to get. Some members of Congress found fault
with Washington for not attacking the enemy. He answered, "I can assure
these gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to
draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to
occupy a cold bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow without clothes
or blankets." During the winter Mrs. Washington came on from Virginia,
and shared her husband's log-hut.

But after the long, h