THE OPENING OF A BARREL
It was a merry afternoon and evening that the Happy Hexagons spent at Quentina's home, and it was still a merrier time that they had getting settled for the night. Even Tilly said at last:
"Well, Quentina, it's lucky a lame foot doesn't have ears. I don't know what your mother will say to us!"
"Only fancy if Miss Jane were here," shivered Genevieve.
It was just as the family were finishing breakfast the next morning that there came a knock at the door, and a man rolled in a large barrel.
"Oh, it's the missionary barrel—our barrel from the East!" cried Quentina. "I wonder now—what do you suppose there is in it?"
"There isn't anything, I reckon, except old things," piped up Rob, shrilly.
Mrs. Jones colored painfully.
"Robert, my son!" she remonstrated, in evident distress.
"Well, mother, you know there isn't—most generally," defended Robert.