bring my crazy quilt and show it to you, when I get it done, Mrs. Burbank,” added Linda.

Whereupon Johnny spoke up, and said:

“If you don’t get on with your crazy quilt any faster than my sister does with hers, you won’t ever get it done!”

And Linda told him that sounded just like Fred!

Johnny carried the pillow-case out to the buggy and tucked it under the seat; and Linda could think of nothing but her crazy pieces all the way to East Berlin.

When she got home and showed them to Fred, he declared they were the jolliest, craziest lot of pieces he had seen yet!

And when Linda’s quilt was commenced, all the girls went wild over it; but she laughingly refused to tell them where her pieces came from.

She made a great mystery of the matter, asserting, in reply to all inquiries, that hers would be a crazy quilt with a history, and nobody should know anything about it until the quilt was finished.

A crazy quilt with a history is no trifling piece of work, and the girls have not yet heard the story.

DAVY’S TURN.

BY FLORENCE B. HALLOWELL.

“Never mind! It’ll come my turn some day, and then I’ll pay you boys up; and you’ll be sorry enough for all the mean things you’ve done to me,” and Davy Potter stooped to pick up the books which one of a group of a dozen boys had pushed from his arm.

The school-house yard was muddy from recent rains, and the books were so wet and dirty that Davy took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe them off.

“What’ll you take for that handkerchief, Dave?” asked Fred Bassett. “It’s a beauty, and no mistake.”

There was a loud shout from the other boys, and universal attention was directed to the little square of faded calico Davy was so industriously using.

A hot flush rose to the boy’s thin, freckled face; but he made no reply, except to mutter under his breath something which the boys could not catch.

But there was a bitter, vindictive feeling in his heart as he followed his persecutors into the school-house. He did not understand why all the wit—if wit it could be called—should be leveled at him; why he should be the target for every poisoned arrow, simply because he was poor, ugly and always at the bottom of his classes. He thought it unjust and cruel, and longed with all his heart for the time to come when by some real good luck he would have a chance to “pay the boys up.”

He knew that if he ever needed assistance in any such work, he could rely on old Sim Kane to help him; for the old man—a half-witted creature who earned a miserable livelihood by doing odd jobs of wood-sawing and cleaning for charitably-disposed people—had good reason, also, to hate the boys of the Prickett school, and long for revenge.

Davy lived with an aunt, who gave him a home as a matter of duty, and regarded him as a burden and a nuisance, often treating him so unkindly that he was made very unhappy, and spent as little time with her as possible.

He tried honestly to be dutiful and obedient; but he couldn’t help forgetting occasionally to wipe his feet before entering the kitchen, and sometimes he let the fire go out, or forgot to feed the chickens. Then he was severely reprimanded, of course, and told that he was ungrateful, as well as stupid.

But in the woods he was free to do as he liked, and there was no one to scold or find fault with him, and he had many dumb but affectionate friends there among the squirrels, rabbits and birds.

So he always took his way to the woods every Saturday as soon as he had cleaned up the yard about his aunt’s house, filled all the water-buckets, cut the kindling for the kitchen stove, and attended to the dozen or more other chores Miss Potter required of him.

He never shirked the least of them, no matter how anxious he was to get away; for he had been so frequently told how much he owed to his aunt, that he believed he could not do too much for her.

It was while exploring the depths of the woods, one day, that he discovered the secret retreat of the “Mystic Nine,” a club of nine boys who disappeared from the village regularly every Saturday morning during the spring, summer and fall, and remained away until sunset, often returning with torches to have a street parade after dark, or with a bag of plump birds for a grand “fry” in the kitchen of some indulgent mother.

That they had a hiding-place of some sort, where they held meetings and ate the generous lunches they carried with them, all the boys outside the nine felt sure; but none of the Mystics ever answered any questions concerning it, and threw out vague but impressive warnings as to the terrible fate that would befall any one whose curiosity led him to seek to penetrate the secret they guarded so closely.

Davy stumbled upon it quite by chance. Following the trail of a bird with a wounded wing, he found himself in a part of the wood he had never been in before, and came suddenly upon a great pile of brush a dozen feet high, behind which was the entrance to a deep cave in a rocky hillside.

He entered, and found it well furnished with rough blankets, a table, an oil stove, and many other things necessary to the comfort and convenience of nine boys. A large window in the roof, which was carefully covered with brush, afforded a means to obtain light, when that given by the mouth of the cave did not prove sufficient, or when bad weather made it necessary to drop the canvas which did duty as a door.

Davy, afraid of getting into trouble, kept his discovery to himself, but he made frequent stolen trips to the cave, and resolved that some day he would use his knowledge for the purpose of obtaining his revenge.

He had a vague plan in his head to guide about fifty of the roughest boys in the village to the cave, and thus give the secret to every one, and he fully determined to let this be his form of revenge, when, being called upon to read in class, he was forced to use the wet, soiled books.

His thoughts were directed so much to this subject that his lessons were recited even worse than usual, and as a result he was kept in to study for an hour after the close of school.

When he was at last free to go home, and left the school-house, he found that poor old Sim was in the hands of his enemies. The Mystic Nine had placed him in his own dilapidated hand-cart, and were wheeling him down one of the side streets as fast as they could go, shouting and laughing at his frenzied cries of distress and the ludicrous picture he presented, as he clung to the side of the cart, the brim of his torn straw hat flapping in the wind, and an old scarf of bright scarlet silk, which he cherished as his dearest earthly possession, streaming out behind.

Davy felt very sorry for the old man,

but did not dare interfere. He could only wait until the boys, becoming wearied of their sport, ran the cart into a shallow pond and went off to seek other diversion.

Old Sim was almost helpless with fright and exhaustion, and when Davy waded into the pond and pushed the cart out on dry land again, he threw his arms about the boy’s neck, and clung to him, sobbing and moaning like a child.

It was all Davy could do to comfort and quiet him, and to persuade him to go home, so apprehensive was he that another attack would be made on him. But Davy finally succeeded in convincing him that there was no further danger, and the old man went scuffling off to the miserable shanty he called home.

The next day was Saturday, and as the weather was clear and bright, Davy resolved to spend the whole morning in the woods. But his aunt found so much for him to do that it was nearly noon before he was able to get away.

As usual, he divided his lunch with the