"_Very_ likely!" he said--to himself this time. So what did he do, when he had heard all about it, but promise to whack Pete Bolton with his stick the first time he got him. And Sarah began to cry all over again, saying that Pete had no mother and couldn't be expected to know any better. "Well," said he, "that's as may be! But anyway, I'll be a father to Pete the next time I catch him. I'll teach him to let little girls alone. I've dealt with heaps of Pete Boltons before! Oh, often! Don't you trouble, little girl!" And he actually got his hat and walked home with Little Sarah, growling all the time. I don't know what he gave her. But, anyway, what he said to her mother made the poor woman so happy that she nearly forgot to be ill. And on Monday I noticed that Little Sarah had new whole shoes and so had her brother Billy. So something must have happened, and though nothing was said, I can pretty well guess what. So can Hugh John--and you too, my dear Diary. Only we won't tell. But the "Compulsory Man," who makes boys attend school, descended on wicked Pete Bolton, and then the schoolmaster fell on him, so that Pete became a reformed character--this is, so long as he was sore. Then, of course, he forgot, and began playing truant again. Only after that he let Little Sarah alone. Because, you see, he never knew when, in a narrow lane, he might meet a big man, pulling at a big mustache, and carrying a very big stick. Because the sermons that big man preached with his stick were powerful, and Pete Bolton did not forget them easily. The End--moral included free of charge, as Hugh John says. IV MISS POLLY PRETEND _End of June._ Of course there ought to be a story in all this--the story of my life. I have a Relative who can spin you the story of anybody's life if you only tell him what number of shoe he wears. Only I am just a little girl, and have neither been murdered nor married--as yet. So in my life there are no--what is the word?--ingredients for the pudding. Yes, that is it. So it must just come anyhow, like things tumbling out of your pocket when you hang head down from a tree or haystack which you are climbing. All the same I will try always to put one story or one subject into a chapter, though these won't be called "Printed in Gore," or "The House of Crime," or anything like that. For, you see, the stories the boys read are just stuffed with such things. So it will be rather a change to write about "The Dirty Piece of Embroidery" and "The Colored-Silk Work-basket."