that I had received not a few hard knocks; but as everything was quiet, I dismissed the impression; for I had yet to learn that my new bed-fellow was a spasmodic kicker in his sleep of great range and power.

Erelong grandmother knocked at our chamber door and called us. Halstead hastily opened his eyes and rose, as suddenly as he had fallen asleep, without even a preliminary yawn.

"Sunday, isn't it?" said he, as he dressed. "But we don't have to go to church to-day. It's the Elder's turn to preach at Stoneham; he only comes here half the time."

After breakfast and after family prayers, Addison, Halstead and I went out to the garden and there was some effort at a conversation about blue-birds, a pair of which were building in a box on a pole which had been set up in the garden wall. But we did not yet feel much acquainted; Addison soon went back toward the house; Halstead sauntered off among the apple trees in the orchard, and gradually approached the wall near the road; then with a swift glance about him, he sprang over and crouched out of sight behind it.

It occurred to me that he was doing this to initiate a frolic; and after waiting for a few moments, I drew near the place and peeped over. But he was not hidden there. Immediately I espied him down the road, evidently stealing away.

White Sunday, indeed! The orchard was a sunlit wilderness of pink and white blossoms. Every breath of the breeze shook off showers of them. The ground grew white beneath the trees. The garden was bordered with hedges of currant bushes; and within them stood a regiment of bare bean-poles in line. On the upper side was a bee-house, also a long row of grape trellises, covered with dry vines, showing here and there a large, pale green bud.

Presently Theodora came out.

"Alone, cousin?" she asked. "Where are the other boys?"

I told her that Addison had gone into the house.

"And Halstead?"

I replied that he was in the orchard a few minutes ago.

"He's gone now," said she, glancing through the trees. "Let's go find Addison."

No long search was necessary. She led the way directly up-stairs to his room and tapped at the door. There was a moment's skurry inside and a voice said, "Who's there?"

"Doad,"—with a smile to me.

The key turned and Addison looked out.

"I have brought our new cousin," she said. "Can we come in?"

"Yes," said he, hesitantly, with a backward glance into the room. "Come in. Halse isn't there, is he?"

"No, Halse has gone, again," said Theodora.

They looked at each other significantly. Addison then opened the door and bustled about, clearing out chairs for us. The room seemed filled with things. On one side there was a great cupboard, stuffed, in a helter-skelter way, with books, papers and magazines. Farther along stood a bureau upon the top of which were set several bottles. A hat-tree in the corner had, perched upon it, a stuffed crow, a hawk and a blue jay with bright glass eyes. A rough shelf had been put up along one end, on which lay many glistening stones of all sorts and sizes; and on the bed was a large book, open to some cuts of birds.

"Naughty boy!" exclaimed Theodora, pointing to several loose feathers on the bed and on the floor. "What did you promise me?"

Addison reddened.

"No, I will not hush it up!" cried Theodora. "You deserve to be exposed! A youth who breaks his promises! You shall show us what you've been doing. I know where you have hidden it!" Before he could hinder her, she threw back the pillow and lo! more feathers and a small white and black bird! "Ah-ha, sir!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you say that you would not 'mount' another bird, Sunday?"

"Yes, I did, I own I did," said Addison. "But I only got this bobolink last night. He would spoil, if I let him go till Monday. Besides, I shall have to work then. And (holding him up) he's such a little beauty that I couldn't bear to lose him."

This last appeal disarmed Theodora. "We will pass it over this time," she said; "but (lowering her voice) you must not 'stuff' birds, Sunday. Yet now that you've broken the Commandment in your heart, by beginning, perhaps you might as well finish it. So we will both go off and let you get through with your wickedness as soon as you can."

"Addison is a real good cousin," Theodora said to me, apologetically, as we returned to the orchard. "He is one of the nicest boys I ever saw. He almost never gets angry, and always speaks in a gentlemanly way to grandfather and grandmother; and he is real good to us girls, whenever we have anything hard to do, or want to make flower boxes, or spade up our flower beds. He knows the different kinds of rocks and trees and flowers, and the birds, too, and all about their nests and where they go winters. Uncle William, you know, was a teacher, the preceptor of an Academy; he understood botany and mineralogy and taught Ad when he was a little boy. Addison means to get a college education, if he can make his way to do it.

"I should like to get a good education, too," Theodora added after awhile. "Have you any plans of your own?"

I replied that I had no plans as yet; but that I, too, would like to attend school.

"We all go to the district school here," said Theodora, "and we can learn a good deal, if we study well. But I should like to go to a more advanced school when I get a little older, so that I could be a teacher myself, perhaps; though I would rather be something else than a teacher," she added.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't quite like to tell you that just yet," she said.

"I am going to show you the good apple trees," she continued, and led the way through the orchard. "These three great ones, here below the garden wall, are Orange Speck trees; they are real nice apples for winter; and there is the Gilliflower tree. Over here is the Early Sweet Bough; and that big one is the August Sweeting; and out there are the three August Pippins. All those away down there toward the road are Baldwins and Greenings. Those two by the lane wall are None Such trees. Out there by the corn-field wall are four Sweet Harvey trees and next below them, two Georgianas. I learned all their names last year. But this one here by the currant bushes is a Sops-in-wine. Oh, they are so good! and they get ripe early, too, and so do the August Pippins and the Harveys and the August Sweetings; they are all nice. Those small trees just below the barnyard fence are pears, Bartlett pears, luscious ones! and those vines on the trellises are the Isabella and Concord grapes; some years grapes don't get ripe up here in Maine; but they did last year, pretty ripe, in October. Grandfather carried some of them to the County Fair and lots of the apples; he had over forty different kinds of fruit on exhibition. We girls went with him and placed the apples and pears and the grapes on plates, in the Fair building. You will go with us this year, I suppose.

"All this ground here is planted to beets and carrots and turnips. You mustn't step on it," my pleasant-voiced cousin admonished me. "And we will not go up very close to that little shed there. That is the bee-house. See all those hives! The bees will sometimes sting any one they don't know. Ad isn't afraid of them; I am not much afraid; they have never stung me. They sting Halstead like sport, if he goes up in front of the hives. Grandfather puts on a veil and some gloves and takes them off the apple tree limbs, when they swarm. Ellen is afraid of them, too; but Wealthy will go up and sit right down in her little chair, close by that biggest, old, dark-colored hive. There's an enormous swarm in that hive; and they send out two or three young swarms every year; that is one of them in the white, tall hive there at the end of the shed.

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