THE DARK NIGHT.
[CHAPTER I.]
ONE lovely spring morning, in the latter end of May, Osric Dennison and his sister Elsie were getting ready to go to school. The school was at Boonville, almost a mile from their father's house, though there was a "cross-lot" path which shortened the distance. And as Osric and Elsie liked to have a little time for talk and play before school, they were apt to set out from the red farmhouse as soon after breakfast as they could conveniently get away.
On this Monday morning, they were unusually early, even for the red farmhouse. There was corn-planting to do, there was the washing to get on with, and the children's elder sister Avice, who taught school in a district some miles away, and who came home every Saturday, had to get back to her place in time to begin her school at nine o'clock. So Mrs. Dennison had her breakfast on the table at six o'clock.
Osric and Elsie had done all their "chores," such as washing breakfast things, feeding pigs and fowls, etc., and it was not yet quite eight. Osric was just strapping his books together, and Elsie had finished putting up the dinner for both of them, when Avice came into the room with her hat on and her satchel in her hand.
"Has either of you children seen the book I brought home with me on Saturday—that volume of the History of England?"
"I haven't," said Osric, promptly.
"Haven't you, Elsie?" asked her sister. "I want it very much to carry back with me."
"I haven't had it, sister, but I guess I can find it," said Elsie, quietly. "I think I know where I saw it." She left the room as she spoke, and presently came back with the missing volume.