Had it not been that the aerial tramway was so securely affixed to the two houses, and to take it down would be to deprive Tess, who was innocent, of some amusement, Mrs. Pinkney would have ordered the connections between the two houses severed at once. As it was, she drove the shamefaced Sammy into the house ahead of her, and some of his boy acquaintances, lingering with ghoulish curiosity outside, heard unmistakable sounds of punishment being inflicted upon the culprit. He was then sent up to his room to meditate. And just outside his screened window was the tantalizing tramway which Neale had repaired and which was again in good working order. Sammy had been forbidden to use the new plaything; but the little Corner House girls soon began to feel sorry for him. Even Tess thought that his punishment was too hard. "For he didn't really hurt Sandyface and the kittens. Only scared 'em," she said. "But s'pose they'd've got dizzy and fell out--like I did out of the swing?" Dot observed, inclined to make the matter more serious even than her sister. "_Then_ what would have happened?" Tess nevertheless felt sorry for the culprit, and seeing his woe-begone and tear-stained face pressed close to his chamber window, she wrote the following on a piece of pasteboard, stood it upright in the basket and drew it across so that Sammy might read it: DONT MINE SAmmY WE Ar SORRY THe CATS AR Al RITE DOT & TESS The "_cat_astrophy" as Neale insisted upon calling the accident, threw some gloom into an otherwise pleasant day--for the little girls at least. And that evening something else was discovered that sent Dot to bed in almost as low a state of mind as that with which Sammy Pinkney retired. This second unfortunate incident happened after supper, when they were all gathered in the sitting room, Neale, too, being present. Luke asked Dot if she had decided upon a name for the new baby. "Oh, yes, Mr. Luke," the smallest Corner House girl replied. "The sailor-baby was christened to-day. Didn't you know!" "I hadn't heard about it," he confessed. "What is he called?" Dot told him proudly. And Tess said: "Don't you think it is a pretty name? Dot found it all her own self. It was painted on a barn." "What's that?" asked Neale suddenly. "What was painted on a barn?" "The sailor-baby's name," Dot said proudly. "'Nosmo King Kenway.'" "On a barn!" repeated the puzzled Neale. "Whose barn?" When he learned that it was Mr. Stout's tobacco barn he looked rather funny and asked several other questions of the little girls. Then he drew a sheet of paper toward him and with a pencil printed something upon it, which he passed to Agnes. She burst into laughter at once, and passed the paper on. "What is it?" Dot asked curiously. "Is it a funny picture he's drawed?" "It's funnier than a picture," laughed Luke, who had taken a squint at the paper. "I declare, isn't that a good one!"