“That’s right, you’ll kill someone if you’re not careful,” said Frank, with a hearty laugh. For Frank’s laugh rang out gay and clear these days, and oftimes Mother and Father would look at him and marvel at the change.
“I don’t think we did right by the lad, keeping him so long with us at the work he must have hated,” said Father.
“Oh, well! it will make him appreciate his good fortune all the more now,” said Mother. “And I don’t think Frank regrets the time he spent with us now, but it’s nice to see him so happy.”
The last evening came, as last evenings will, no matter how we try to stay their progress. The last evening of a happy, care-free week—a week to which many looked back in after years with a sigh or a smile, but always with a tender memory.
“I wonder will we ever have another week here. I wonder where we’ll all be this time next year.” And a great, great many more wonders were voiced, as they gathered round the camp fire for the last time. And how they did talk! The things they had meant to say for ever so long were said to-night. Fresh stories and jokes were recounted, and from being at first a somewhat saddened party, with the thought of the “break-up” in the morning, they became noisy and gay. Just in the midst of the laughter two little figures bounded up before them.
“Good gracious! Whatever’s that? The twins!”
Sure enough it was the twins—the twins, smothered in mud and dirty water, with dead leaves sticking to the mud that covered them, and dirty, muddy water streaming from their clothes.
“Where have you been? I thought you were in bed?” and other questions were put to them.
“So we wad, and we seen a rabbit and we jumped out an’ chased him, and Kossie fell in the river and I pulled him out——”
“An’ den he fell in——” chipped in Kossie, “an’ I pulled him out, and den——”