Ben brought the rail, but just as he was about to lay it from the main-land to the nearest tussock, he stopped, saying, with the naughty twinkle in his black eyes again: "One more little thing must be settled first, and then I'll get you ashore. Promise you wont plague the girls either, 'specially Bab and Betty. You pull their hair, and they don't like it."
THE BROOK ABOVE THE MARSH.
"Don't neither. Wouldn't touch that Bab for a dollar; she scratches and bites like a mad cat," was Sam's sulky reply.
"Glad of it; she can take care of herself. Betty can't, and if you touch one of her pig-tails I'll up and tell right out how I found you sniveling in the ma'sh like a great baby. So now!" and Ben emphasized his threat with a blow of the suspended rail which splashed the water over poor Sam, quenching his last spark of resistance.
"Stop! I will!—I will!"
"True as you live and breathe!" demanded Ben, sternly binding him by the most solemn oath he knew.
"True as I live and breathe," echoed Sam, dolefully relinquishing his favorite pastime of pulling Betty's braids and asking if she was at home.
"I'll come over there and crook fingers on the bargain," said Ben, settling the rail and running over it to the tuft, then bridging another pool and crossing again till he came to the stump.
"I never thought of that way," said Sam, watching him with much inward chagrin at his own failure.