“Please, Uncle Fred, don’t be cross with them:” this from Phil, who had taken no active share in the matter. “They didn’t really know how frightened he is. I think I ought to be punished most, because I only laughed instead of taking Bertie’s part, and I knew much better than they did about him.”
Uncle Fred looked into Phil’s bright, frank face with an approving glance. He liked the boy all the better for his honest confession of a fault.
“That is right, my boy. Never try to shirk blame when you feel you have deserved it. Why did you not take Bertie’s part, then, when you understood so well how frightened it made him to be on the water?”
Phil hung his head for a moment, but he looked up bravely again the next, and in spite of the gravity of his face there was a merry sparkle in his bright blue eyes.
“It was not at all nice of me, Uncle Fred, but I couldn’t help enjoying it. Bertie did cut away so fast, and kicked and struggled so hard, and seemed in such a passion—I suppose it was fright really, but it looked like a jolly big rage, and he made me laugh, and when I once begin to laugh, it’s all over with me;” Phil glanced up roguishly at his uncle, and then dropped his eyes and added, with genuine penitence, “But I was awfully sorry when I saw that Bertie was really hurt. It hasn’t done him any harm, has it?”
“I hope not; but it is very bad for any one to have a scare like that; and Bertie is not strong, and you big boys ought to be more manly than to combine against one smaller and weaker than yourselves. You would not like to be called cowards, but if you heard the story told in a book, I think you would call it a very cowardly trick to set upon a little fellow like Bertie and treat him as you did.”
The boys flushed deeply, but did not try to defend themselves. They felt a little guilty and conscience-stricken, for one thing, and then Uncle Fred was an immense favorite, and they knew that he never spoke to them like this without good cause.
But Queenie was indignant at having her brothers condemned, and she tossed her head in her favorite fashion as she exclaimed,—
“I think it’s Bertie who is the coward, Uncle Fred, not my boys.”
He turned and looked at the little girl with a smile in his kind eyes.