"Oh, papa, can't I go with them?" pleaded Alf.
"What do you think, Maggie?" Leonard asked his wife, who now entered.
"Well, boys will be boys. If you will let mamma bundle you up—"
"Oh, yes, anything, if I can only go!" cried Alf, trembling with excitement.
"Sister Amy," Webb remarked, a little diffidently, "if you care to see the fun, you can get a good view from the window of your room. I'll load my gun in the hall."
"Can I see you load?" Amy asked, catching some of Alf's strong interest.
"It's all so novel to me."
"Certainly. I think you will soon find that you can do pretty much as you please in your new home. You are now among republicans, you know, and we are scarcely conscious of any government."
"But I have already discovered one very strong law in this household," she smilingly asserted, as she stood beside him near the hall-table, on which he had placed his powder-flask and shot-pouch.
"Ah, what is that?" he asked, pouring the powder carefully into the muzzles of the gun.
"The law of kindness, of good-will. Why," she exclaimed, "I expected to be weeks in getting acquainted, but here you are all calling me sister Amy as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It seems so odd," she laughed, "that I am not a bit afraid of you, even with your gun, and yet we have just met, as it were. The way you and your brothers say 'sister Amy' makes the relation seem real. I can scarcely believe that I am the same girl that stepped down at the station this evening, nor can I get over my pleased wonder at the transformation."