On the following morning Tim and Sam were awakened very suddenly by a confused noise which appeared to come from the kitchen below, and which could not have been greater had a party of boys been engaged in a game of leap-frog there.

A woman's screams were heard amid the crashing of furniture as it was overturned, the breaking of crockery, and the sounds of scurryings to and fro, while high above all came at irregular intervals the yelp of a dog.

This last sound caused Tim the greatest fear. A hasty glance around the room had shown him that Tip, who had been peacefully curled up on the outside of the bed when he last remembered anything, was no longer to be seen; and without knowing how it could have happened, he was sure it was none other than his pet who was uttering those cries of distress.

In a few moments more he learned that he was not mistaken, for Tip rushed into the room, his tongue hanging out, his stub of a tail sticking straight up, and looking generally as though he had been having a hard time of it.

Before Tim, who had at once leaped out of bed, could comfort his pet, a voice, sounding as if its owner was sadly out of breath, was heard crying, "Sam! Sam! Sammy!"

"What, marm?" replied Sam, who lay quaking with fear, and repenting the fact that his desire for candy had led him into what looked very much like a bad scrape.

"Did a dog just come into your room?"

"Yes, marm."

"Throw something at him, and drive him out."

For an instant Sam clutched the pillow as if he would obey the command; but Tim had his arms around Tip's neck, ready to save him from any injury, even if he was obliged to suffer himself.

"Why don't you drive him out?" cried Mrs. Simpson, after she had vainly waited to hear the sound of her son's battle with the animal.

"Why—why—why—" stammered Sam, at a loss to know what to say, and trembling with fear.

"Are you afraid of him?"

"No, marm," was the faltering reply.

"Then why don't you do as I tell you?"

"Why—why, Tim won't let me," cried Sam, now so frightened that he hardly knew what he did say.

"Why, what's the matter with the boy?" Tim heard the good woman say; and then the sound of rapid footsteps on the stairs told that she was coming to make a personal investigation.

Sam, in a tremor of fear, rolled over on his face, and buried his head in the pillow, as if by such a course he could shelter himself from the storm he expected was about to break upon him.

Tim was crouching in the middle of the floor, his face close down to Tip's nose, and his arms clasped so tightly around the dog's neck that it seemed as if he would choke him.

That was the scene Mrs. Simpson looked in upon after she had been nearly frightened out of her senses by a strange dog while she was cooking breakfast. She had tried to turn the intruder out of doors, but he, thinking she wanted to play with him, had acted in such a strange and at the same time familiar manner that she had become afraid, and the confusion that had awakened the boys had been caused by both, when neither knew exactly what to do.

Mrs. Simpson stood at the room door looking in a moment before she could speak, and then she asked, "What is the meaning of this, Samuel?"

Sam made no reply, but buried his face deeper in the pillows, while the ominous shaking of his fat body told that he was getting ready to cry in advance of the whipping he expected to receive.

"Who is this boy?" asked the lady, finding that her first question was likely to receive no reply.

Sam made no sign of life, and Tim, knowing that something must be said at once, replied, piteously, "Please, ma'am, it's only me an' Tip."

Sam's face was still buried in the pillows; but the trembling had ceased, as if he was anxious to learn whether his companion could free himself from the position into which he had been led.

"Who are you, and how did you come here?" asked Mrs. Simpson, wonderingly.

Tim turned toward the bed as if he expected Sam would answer that question; but that young man made no sign that he had even heard it, and Tim was obliged to tell the story.

"I'm only Tim Babbige, an' this is Tip. We was tryin' to find a place to sleep last night, when we met Sam, an' after we'd found the cow we went down to the store an' bought some candy, an' when we come back Sam was goin' to ask you to let me sleep in the barn, but you was in bed; so he said it was all right for me to come up here an' sleep with him. I'm awful sorry I did it, an' sorry Tip acted so bad; but if you won't scold, we'll go right straight away."

Mrs. Simpson was by no means a hard-hearted woman, and the boy's explanation, as well as his piteous way of making it, caused her to feel kindly disposed toward him. She asked him about himself; and by the time he had finished telling of the death of his parents, the cruel treatment he had received from Captain and Mrs. Babbige, and of his desperate attempt at bettering his condition, her womanly heart had a great deal of sympathy in it for him.

Then Tim added, as if it was the last of his pitiful story, "Me an' Tip ain't got anybody who cares for us but each other, an' if we don't get a chance to work, so's we can get some place to live, I don't know what we will do." Then he laid his head on the dog's nose, and cried as though his little heart was breaking, while Tip set up a series of most doleful howls.

"You poor child," said the good woman, kindly, "you're not large enough to work for your living, and I don't know what Mr. Simpson will say to your being here very long; but you shall stay till we see what can be done for you, whatever he says. Now don't cry any more, but dress yourself, and come down stairs, and help me clean up the litter the dog and I made. Sam, you lazy boy," she added, as she turned toward her half-concealed son, "get up and dress yourself. You ought to be ashamed for not telling me last night what you were about."

Then patting Tim on the head, the good woman went down stairs to attend to her household duties.

As soon as the sound of the closing door told that his mother had left the room, Sam rolled out of bed, much as a duck gets out of her nest, and said, triumphantly, to Tim, who was busy dressing, "Well, we got out of that scrape all right, didn't we?"

Tim looked up at him reproachfully, remembering Sam's silence when the affair looked so dark; but he contented himself with simply saying, "Yes, it's all right till we see what your father will say about it."

"Oh, he won't say anything, so long as mother don't," was the confident reply; and the conversation was broken there by Tim going down stairs to help Mrs. Simpson in repairing the damage done by Tip.

Before he had been helping her very long, he showed himself so apt at such work that she asked, "How does it happen that you are so handy at such things?"

"I don't know," replied Tim, bashfully, "'cept that Aunt Betsey always made me help her in the kitchen; an' I s'pose it comes handy for a feller to do what he must do."

By the time Sam came down stairs the kitchen presented its usual neat appearance, and he was disposed to make light of his mother's fright; but she soon changed his joy to grief by telling him to go to the spring for a pail of water.

Now if there was one thing more than another which Sam disliked to do, it was to bring water from the spring. The distance was long, and he believed it was unhealthy for him to lift as much weight as that contained in a ten-quart pail of water. As usual, he began to make a variety of excuses, chief among which was the one that the water brought the night before was as cool and fresh as any that could be found in the spring.

Tim, anxious to make himself useful in any way, offered to go; and then Sam was perfectly willing to point out the spring, and to generally superintend the job.

"Tim may go to help you," said Mrs. Simpson, "but