As for the younger ones,--they were so many millstones about the neck. Sadie Currier and Louise Mason were always tagging on behind, spying here and interfering there. The two Kittredges,--Susy and Minnie,--were worse than all the rest. Minnie's spotless behavior, clean hands, correct pronunciation, and generally immaculate existence was a continual reproach to all of us who were merely human. Susy's tongue was never quiet, and she divided her time between chanting her own merits, and predicting woe for the rest of the world. So it was with a not altogether unprejudiced eye that I gazed on this small interloper, and wondered what I had done that I should be treated like this. Doubtless she reciprocated the feeling heartily, but I had no means of knowing that. I could not go forth again to the buffalo hunt, carrying this bit of impedimenta with me. When I even suggested taking her outdoors, a veto was pronounced promptly. Alice was dressed too nicely to go and play outdoors. Dressed indeed she was,--starched and cleaned and combed distressingly. "Perhaps Alice would like to see some of the things in your playroom, Sam,--why don't you take her out there?" I had expected it. There only remained this final blow, and I knew it would fall. Admit this girl to my inner sanctum,--oh, well, the world was turned upside down this afternoon. What had to be, had to be, and there was an end to it. "Come on!" I said, in a tone that mingled resignation and gruffness. Alice did not evince any great amount of eagerness to follow me. Instead, she hung back,--exactly like a girl! Here was I, putting myself out to be pleasant and courteous, giving up my afternoon, in fact, for her amusement, and at my very first invitation she pretended reluctance. Her mother urged her to accompany me, however, and pretty soon we reached my especial room. "Do you like polliwogs?" I demanded, walking toward a glass jar in which several hundred of them swam about like animated quotation marks. "Ugh! I hate 'em! Nathty squiggly things!" and she turned away abruptly. Here was a nice beginning for you! My prized polliwogs, gathered at no small trouble, and already beginning to show the most interesting signs of froggishness, were dismissed as "nathty squiggly things!" But I let the matter pass. I was determined to be polite,--polite and patient. I picked up a little box, covered with wire. "Here is my snake box,--I've only got two now,--one green one and--" I had no time to finish about the red one, nor to exhibit the snakes themselves. They were really the most harmless little fellows in the world,--neither of them over five inches long. One I had found under a fallen headstone in the old burying-ground, and the other I had obtained by swapping with Ed Mason,--giving a sinker, two fish-hooks, a turtle, and a piece of rock candy in exchange.