"There! there! the bird has flown away!" said Aggie.
"But he has answered the question that has been puzzling my head for a long, long time," said Guy. "And told us, too, that none of us should be inactive and the greater our power to help others the more we should exercise it."
"That's so," said George, "and I suppose we are all like the 'yellow men,' a good deal puffed up with our own conceit. I'll tell you what, suppose we all enter into a contract to do all the good we can, and let Guy be the judge of our actions, for after all he is the one that first put it into my head to do any good, you know."
"Agreed," cried Aggie, while Gus said, "It was a jolly good idea." But Guy demurred about being judge, thinking with a good deal of shame that he was sometimes as inactive in a good cause as the "yellow men" themselves.
So they sat in the woods talking the matter over until the last rays of the sun fell through the thick leaves and warned them home. Then they took their baskets and turned their faces homeward. Guy saying, "Well then, we are agreed all of us to begin the lives now, to which the 'yellow men' were doomed for their idleness and presumption. Henceforth we are to help the weak, oppose the proud and wicked, and strive to do good."
"I will for one," said George, earnestly.
"So will I," echoed Gus.
"And so will I, with all my heart!" exclaimed little Aggie, just as they stepped out of the woods into the open field. "Only look," she added, glancing back, "a bird has followed us out of the woods. I do believe it is the one that told us the pretty story,—and, listen, to what he is singing, 'Good bye!' why, I even can interpret that, 'Good boy! good bye! Guy Loring! Guy, Good bye!'"