Fandy:"Don't be so unproper. It's pumpkun pie. Dorothy said so. And, besides, we ought to let the comp'ny do the talking."
"Humph! By this time, we've made them forget what they were talkin' about."
"Not I, Charity," laughed Donald, turning to the latest speaker. "In the first place, Josie and Ed didn't feel like leaving home on Thanksgiving Day till after dinner, and we two fellows are going to teach Josie and Dorry to shoot straight. And" (now addressing Ben, who by this time was wedging the handle of a hammer) "as for the gun, Ben, you're always welcome to it, so long as you return it in as good order as you did last time. You cleaned it better than I do."
"I found the rags," said Helen, slyly,—"ever so many. Didn't I, Ben?"
Ben nodded at her, and Helen, made happy for the whole day, ran off hugging a broken dolly in exact imitation of Charity and Baby Jamie; meanwhile her big brother, pleased at Don's compliments, remarked, "It's a prime gun, and never fails."
"Never fails you, Ben, you may as well say. It often fails me, never mind how carefully I aim."
"That's just it, Donald," said Ben. "There's no good in aiming so particular."
"Well, what's a fellow to do?" replied Donald. "You must take aim, and by the time you get a bird well sighted, he's gone."
"Sight? I never sight," said Ben. "I just fire ahead."
"You don't mean to say you shoot a bird without aiming at him?"