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 latch on the back gate; and you give a good hard kick and turn over and stretch out, just to let the old cat die,—and the hammock goes slower and slower, and you cover your eyes to shut out the bright light,—and then the next thing you know, you find yourself just waking up and feeling all damp and sticky around your collar, and your hair plastered all over your forehead,—and likely as not you feel cross.

That's the way I felt when I waked up that day; and I was rubbing my face and trying to start the hammock by wriggling, when I heard Dad's voice come through the dining-room window,—

"How do you suppose Chester will take to having a girl living in the same house with him all the time?"

He had been taking a snooze on the wicker couch just inside the window, before going back to the store; and he and Mother must have been talking for some time; but the first I heard was when my name came through the window.

Mother didn't say anything for a minute, and everything was quiet, and I began to think that perhaps I had only had the nightmare; but by