One of the favorite holiday resorts of Bessie and Rudolph was a lovely spot in the forest, not a quarter of a mile from the house. Shaded by giant oaks, whose gnarled roots lay like serpents, half hidden in the moss, ran a streamlet, covered with sunny speckles, where parted leaves admitted the sunshine. Flowers grew along its banks in wild profusion, and it held its wayward course with many a rippling fall and fantastic turn, until it was lost in the shades of the forest. "Where does it go to, I wonder?" the children often would say to each other, longing for permission to follow its windings farther than the limits prescribed by their parents would allow. "To the ocean, of course," Rudolph would answer, triumphantly; while Bessie, looking at its golden ripple, and listening to its musical song, half believed that it carried its wealth of sparkling jewels to Fairyland itself. Sometimes, when Bouncer was with them, they lingered so long by the mysterious streamlet, sending chip boats adrift upon its surface, or trying to adjust troublesome little water-wheels under some of its tiny cascades, that Mrs. Hedden would blow the big horn as a signal for their return; and as they ran home, playing with Bouncer by the way, or scolding him for shaking his wet sides under their very faces, they would inwardly resolve to coax father to take them up the stream on the very first pleasant Saturday. Accordingly, on one bright Friday in June, as Bessie and Rudolph were returning from school together, they ran toward their father, who was working in the clearing. "Father! father!" they shouted, "will you take us down the stream to-morrow?--we want to see where it goes to." "Goes to?" laughed back the father. "Why, it goes to the moon; didn't Kitty say so last night?" "Now, father," returned Bessie, pouting just a little, "you _know_ we don't believe that. We want you so much to take us in the boat; it doesn't leak at all now--oh! do." And both children fairly capered in their excitement. Mr. Hedden smiled; but; after wiping his forehead with a red and yellow handkerchief, went on thoughtfully with his work without returning any answer. The children, looking wistfully at him a moment, turned toward the house, wondering among themselves, "what father meant to do about it." That evening, at the supper-table (where they didn't have napkin rings or silver salt-cellars, I can assure you), Mr. Hedden asked his wife whether Tom Hennessy was back from "up river" yet? "I think he came home yesterday," returned his wife. "Why do you ask?" "Because I thought, as to-morrow'll be a holiday, I'd get him to take the youngsters down the stream in the scow." "Oh! husband," rejoined Mrs. Hedden, looking up anxiously, "do you think it's safe?" "Why not, Betsey?--the scow doesn't leak; and even if it did, the water isn't above Tom's waist anywhere."