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100 dinner. She wants to know if Hump Bryant's telephoned."

Taylor repressed a smile at this strange procedure which he had witnessed on several occasions, and repeated the information and the question.

"Tell him," said Aunty May, "that there ain't been a 'phone call all forenoon."

Gravely Taylor passed along the message and then, as the woman turned into the house and Joe went on, he resumed his way.

A childish shout from below checked him on the high bank and he looked down to see Bobby and Bessy in the baby trap. That was what all Foraker's Folly called the small, dry sand bar, separated from the bank by a dozen feet of shallow water and reached by a small foot bridge made of stakes driven firmly in and planks laid along them. Each fair morning Aunty May shooed her charges across the bridge and then drew the planks to shore, thereby isolating the children on their sand bar and leaving her wholly free for the housework.

"There!" she would say each time she disposed of them. "Now I know where you younguns are at!"

The peril of water was deeply planted in their hearts and they never attempted the easy wade to shore.

However, playing in the clean sand grew monotonous and though the children never openly protested, they were full of excuses to delay their isolation, full of enthusiasm when released and ever on the watch for some passer who might be waylaid and induced to talk. Bobby, seeing Taylor, had halted him without excuse, but when John stopped the youngster pointed toward shore and cried: