The only persons in the house this June afternoon were the old man, Juniper the dog, and Yulee, and Bo, Robin, Benjy's grandchildren. Their father and mother had gone out for the afternoon and would not be back until after tea; the boys were at work at the other end of the farm, and so the children had been left in care of their grandfather and the servant-maids. But Benjy had gone to sleep, and the servants had taken the time to pay a visit to the next farmhouse. The children however did not notice this; they were sitting on the door-step at the back of the house, at the opposite end of the passage to where their grandfather was. They enjoyed the wind that was blowing through so pleasantly, and Yulee was reading aloud from a book to her brother Bo. Yulee was eight years old; her real name was Julia, but no one but the school mistress ever called her so. Bo, short for Robert, was two years younger and wanted to do everything that Yulee did. Wherever Yulee was, there you would be sure to find Bo. He followed her about as faithfully as a chicken does her mother, and Yulee treated him very much as a hen does its only chicken. The book they were reading was called "_The Castaways_," and Bo was listening to Yulee with the greatest attention. At last, just as the great clock in the hall struck three, Yulee finished; she had skipped some of the parts, especially the hard names and Miss Keenmark's science, but she had read the book through and Bo had heard most of it. "Bo!" said she, as she shut the book, "I'd like to be a castaway, wouldn't you? It would be so fine to live on the top of a rock and have to go up a rope ladder, and keep goats, and save the lives of Africans, and sleep in an ox-cart!" "Oh, but the lions!" said Bo, "and the--and the--what are those big things that live in the water, and most swallowed the canoe?--you know." "I know what you mean," said Yulee. "The hippopotamuses. I said the word all the way going to school yesterday, so as to remember it." "I shouldn't like them," said Bo. "Oh, but one of the men would fire right into his mouth, just as Albert did. I'll find the place;" and turning over the leaves of the book, she came to the story, and read:--"But they had not been long seated when a tremendous shock was felt; the light canoe was thrown above the water, and capsized in a moment; and Albert, who was standing at the stern of the raft, watching the boat, saw, to his great horror, the huge head of a hippopotamus raised above the water, preparing to seize the canoe with its red open mouth. Calling for aid, he seized his gun and fired in the face of the ferocious beast, which with terrific roars, dived down and disappeared." "But who'd you have to shoot the--pippi--what is it?" asked Bo. "The hippopotamus," said Yulee, who liked to pronounce the word; "why, of course, there must be some men wrecked with me: there's the captain, and the doctor, and carpenter, and the passengers--"