“‘I can not sing the old songs’; It is not that I deem them low, ’Tis that I can’t remember How they go.” “Pshaw!” cried Kitty, who evidently had some object in view. “I am sure you can sing something,—and you must. Don’t you know ‘Hail Columbia,’ or ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ or ‘Bonnie Doon’?” “I know ‘Old Grimes,’” said Jasper. “‘Old Grimes’? Well let me hear it.” So Jasper began to sing, to a tolerably correct air but in a voice which was far from musical, the song “Old Grimes is Dead.” He grew somewhat in love with his own performance as he proceeded, and gave the “old gray coat” such a thorough “buttoning down before” in the chorus, that Kitty grew impatient. “Why, to be sure!” she interrupted. “That air is the same as ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and will do perfectly.” Then she turned to Freddy: “Now, Freddy, what can you sing?” “Oh, I say,” protested Jasper, “you’re not going to make Freddy exhibit himself, too? “‘Strike, if you will, this old gray head,’ But spare a little boy like Fred.” Kitty inexorably repeated her question; and Freddy, showing no disposition to plead his tender years as an excuse, declared that he could sing “’Way down upon the Suwanee River,” and he freely opened his mouth and delivered himself of a verse of the song indicated, in proof of his assertion. “That will do capitally,” pronounced Miss Kitty. “And, Ethel, you can take ‘Ben Bolt,’ say, and I will take ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ The simpler and more familiar the tunes the better. And now I’ll tell you what I wish you to do. It’s ever so much fun! We tried it one day, up at Lenox, and we got into a perfect gale over it. It’s just this: Whatever any one of us has to say, no matter what it is and without any exception, we must _sing_ it instead of saying it, every one using the tune assigned him or her. Do you understand? “It’s the eá-siest thing in the wuh-órld, when wuh-ónce you have triéd-it.” She calmly illustrated her meaning to the tune of “Home, Sweet Home.” “Of course,” she added, “it’s perfectly ridiculous. But that’s the fun of it, you know.” They all fell in with the scheme at once, though Jasper proposed to improve it a little. “Wouldn’t it be well,” he suggested, “to prescribe some penalty or forfeit in case anybody forgets, and talks instead of singing? Suppose, for instance, we agree, each of us, to pay ten cents every time we break the rule, all money so obtained to be devoted to some charitable object.” “I consent to that,” said Ethel, quite approving. “And I, too!” cried Kitty. “It will make us all the more particular.” “Well, then, _I don’t_!” shouted Freddy, rising up, very red in the face. “It’s all very well for you people who have allowances. But I’m not as rich as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company myself.” “Well, youngster,” said Jasper, “we’ll only charge you five cents when you break over.” To this Freddy assented.