“Yes’m.” “What do you learn?” “Oh! my duty to my neighbor, and things,” Paul said, wondering if he was to be put through his catechism, and how he would come out of the ordeal. He believed he would rather take his chance with fire crackers. Miss Hansford’s next remark reassured him. “Umph! I know all about that catechism. A deal of good your duty to your neighbor has done you. What’s the eighth commandment?” Paul repeated the _seventh_; then, seeing the look of disgust in Miss Hansford’s face, and realizing his mistake, he involuntarily began the response: “Lord have mercy upon us!” but got no farther, for the ludicrousness of the whole affair overcame every other feeling, and he burst into a peal of laughter, so merry and so boyish that Miss Hansford laughed with him in spite of herself. “Better go home and learn which is which of the commandments,” she said, “but tell me first who was with you, and why he isn’t here too. I saw his tracks,—bigger than yours. I b’lieve ’twas Jack Percy, and that he put you up to it. Was it Jack?” Instantly the expression of Paul’s face changed, and was more like that of a man of twenty than a boy of ten. “I can’t tell you who was with me,” he said. “I promised I wouldn’t, and I’ve never told a lie. He didn’t put me up to it, either. He didn’t know the melon was here till I told him. He was sick, too,—sicker than I. I’m sorry I did it. I’m not half a bad sort of feller, and I hope you’ll forgive me. Will you?” Miss Hansford had cut the melon in two, and, putting a big slice of the red, juicy fruit on a plate, she offered it to Paul and said: “I’ll think about it. Sit down and eat a piece.” “No, thanks. No more melon for me,” he replied, and, feeling sure he was forgiven, he bade her good morning and went whistling off in the direction of the woods, where Jack Percy was lying under a clump of oaks, waiting to hear the result of the interview. “Well, what did she say? I see you have escaped alive,” he said, as Paul joined him. “Rich, wasn’t it?” he continued, rolling in the sand and kicking as Paul related his experience. “I don’t wonder the old lady looked daggers at the commandment business. I wish I could have seen her, and I did. I say, Paul,” and Jack stopped rolling, and, creeping up under the shade of the bushes, went on, very soberly for him: “I went to sleep while waiting for you, and had the queerest dream. I thought Miss Hansford killed you or me,—seemed more as if it was _me_, although I could see it all; could see the one who lay here dead, just where I am lying, and could hear the talking ’round him, and see Miss Hansford, the most scared of them all, trying to lift me up and saying he isn’t dead,—he mustn’t be dead. It was _me_ then, and I woke up with a kind of cramp in my stomach,—some of that confounded melon is there yet. Guess I had a kind of nightmare, but it seemed awful real. I shouldn’t wonder if she did kill me some time, she hates me so.”