We hid their clothes good and safe and then sneaked back and hid where we could watch and hear. After quite a while they came out of the water and sat down to dry off, and they talked some about the duet and how they hated to play it, and how they had to do it or get the worst licking in the world, and we ’most laughed out loud. Then they were pretty well dried and went for their clothes. Skoodles got there first and he looks at the pile and says, “Where’d we leave our clothes, Banty?” “Right on that log,” says Banty. “But they ain’t here.” “They got to be.” “They ain’t. You kin look. There ain’t nothin here but a lot of old women’s rags.” “We left ’em somewheres.” “I know that,” says Skoodles, “but I thought it was right here.” So they looked all around, getting worrieder and worrieder all the time, and at last it sort of come to them that somebody had swiped their duds and left what was there in their place. Then you could have heard them holler to Jericho. “What ’ll we do?” says Banty. “What kin we do?” says Skoodles. “We got to get to the celebration tent.” “You sneak home and git us some clothes.” “You do it.” But neither of them would and time was passing, and then they sat down and didn’t say anything for a spell, until Banty says there wasn’t anything to do but put on the rags, because they’d get arrested for going through town if they didn’t. So they picked up the clothes we’d fixed for them, and that started a rumpus because both of them would rather wear the red-flannel skirt than the pantalets. They ’most had a fight over it, but they decided to draw straws, and Skoodles lost. Then they got to dressing, and I had to hold my hand over Catty’s face and he had to stuff his fist into my mouth to keep ourselves from laughing out loud. You never saw sich looking critters in all your born life. They looked like as if they had escaped from a lunatic asylum while the keeper was having delirium tremens, or something like that, and when they saw each other I thought they was going to set down and cry. “We can’t go through town lookin’ like this,” says Banty. “We got to,” says Skoodles. “Oh, my goodness!” says Banty, “the duet! We got to play the duet!” “Like this?” “We’ll be late now. We got to. I dassent _not_ play it. Ma would fix me, and your Ma would fix you. It ’ll be worse not to show up than it will be to go like this.” “I won’t.” “We got to.”