The Brass Bound Box

he air and Montgomery vanished

-curdling groans which issued from the man's lips, as, for a moment, he lay face downwar

Mose! What i

been one of the girl's peculiarities that she could not bear to touch any ailing thing. She would wait upon people who were ill most cheerfully, even eagerly, but she hated to come in personal contact with them. It had been so even in the case of her father whom she idolized, and had been one of the small items in stepmother's list against her. But she had

hook his fist toward a projecting tree-root which had been hidden

vere as to turn him faint while the brilliant branches overhead began to dance and sway before his dizzy sight as no wind could

VERY LITTLE SPELL,

k and struggled to lift him to his feet, all the while protesting: "You mustn't be broken! You can't be. Just a little crooked root like that a

ness that his few attacks of it had always frightened him. Yet now he realized that something far worse than ordinary had befallen, and that he must rally his

en I brought it to chop with 'twould prove a crutch for broken bones. Oh, I wish we wasn't so far from

the shortest way back?" a

feel so queer every little spell, an' I must get home. That shin-bone's broke, true as preachin', an' six seven my ribs

ellow who was now forcing himself to overcome his own misery for the sake of others. For when she begged hi

e me fetched home 'stead of walkin' there on my own pins. Half a loaf's better'n no loaf, an' one leg's better'n none. As for my plaguey old ribs-they can take care themselves. But once we get there you just

prevent thinking, but had now passed beyond that. By nods and glances he directed Kate along the shortest way,

when she now and then glanced toward it, was pallid with suffering, but his lips were grimly shut, defying his own misery. As he shaved only once a week, on Sunday morning, his half-grown

never come into this dreadful forest, pretty as it is; but, joy! there's a house. We'll be

lookout for somebody. His release from confinement at home had been the result of Aunt Eunice's call, he having been permitted to walk home with her, and to spend the day with Katharine. Alfaretta was recovered and able to do her own dish-washing, an

woods to hunt up his playmate, if he desired her, and in any case to re

member, Montgomery Sturtevant, that you've got on your Sunday clothes; and no matter if your rich city relations do give 'em to you without no trouble to you nor your grandma, 'at you ought to take care of 'em and keep 'em clean. Don't go climbin' trees with 'em on, but just pick up what's on the ground an' you'll eat enough then, fat white worms an' all, to make you sick. Katy, she can give you part her cookies, but don't you get carryin' on with her little basket, 'cause it was her pa's, an' she's goin' to set great store by it. Tell him it's h

tions, he thought, for a day wasted upon a girl's society. There still seemed to linger upon his palate the flavor of Aunt Eunice's pullets, from which he had been despoiled by his first enforced call upon h

t, and at the cost of a breathless run had preserved the mysterious brass bound box from theft. He had now safely hidden it in the hay-mow, and awaited Kate's return to tell her where. It had been almost beyond his power to keep the secret from Miss Maitland, eve

eep! Even the pug dog just bare w-w-waddles, like he's tuckered out," remarked the watching lad to Sir Philip, who had ta

for himself, preferred the satin couch of Sir Philip to the carpet-covered one which Susanna declared "plenty good enough for ary dog humbly as that one." If Punch secured the cushion first he was not easi

ghts, Monty fixed a keener attention upon the

av-in' to me like blazes! That's no 'how-de-do' salute, that's a 'come r-r-right here' one! He's got h

ied. Without a word he seized the axe from its owner's trembling hand and placed his own sturdy little shoulder in its place. Katharine was not crying now, but her anxiety altered her appearance strangely, and Moses was wholly past speech. Every nerve of hi

in of the last hour, though the story of his pluck and endurance was to mak

hastening indoors for help. Rushing breathlessly into the sitting-room where Miss Eunice was quietly arranging some yellow 'mums in

'cause now he truly must be

precious jar that has held flowers for us these generations ju

There's only Monty out there, and I-I

Maitland, her thoughts instantly reverting

but a person, a

tel while her face paled in distress. But she caught the girl's guiding hand firmly in her own, called to

eath Katharine had reported, was trouble sufficiently serious. In the kitchen chamber above, Moses' own room, they could hear Susanna softly stepping about in list slippers, only the jar of the floor beams betraying her movements, and occasionally a muffled voice, strangely unlike the gruff tones of the hired man, would float down t

who had summoned the doctor, run back and forth between that gentleman's office and Miss Maitland's house, carried a plain statement of facts to Madam Sturtevant, as well as a highly furbished one to every householder between the two

o his companion, swallowing a large bit of bread at the same time, and t

al dining-room with Aunt Eunice and grown-up company," she reproved, daintily balancing h

c-c-com-pany no more.

es, Susanna says they are, that had stolen themselves-whatever that is. Then that mystery of a brass bound box; and now Uncle Moses breaking his bones, and so much going on. But-Montgomery Sturtevant! That box! What did become of it? Would we dare, do you suppo

and; sprang to her feet, her wearin

er a "sum" in mental arithmetic, a branch of study he little favored, though it had now come to assume considerable importance to him. Yet the

dollar a day doin' c-c-chores, all the c-c-chores

d then wouldn't budge to go get it. You do try me so, Montgomery! And there's one thing I know. That is, that if I had the management of you I'd break you of t

er reply to his money question. Leaning forward, his blue eyes took on an earnestn

o it? C-c-can you?

ld, and should-if you'd g

honest Injun, h-h

y, that first day after the first night when I-I mocked you. I made up my mind then, and I never unmake minds, that if you'd be decent I

e and back

sight of him standing in one doorway with the glittering casket in his hands, an