The man at the head of the table looked on in dumb amazement, and he was still speechless when, after dinner, five children set upon him and dragged him out to see the bird's nest behind the barn. "An' we found the pigs an' the chickens, Mister, jest as they said we would," piped up Tommy eagerly, as they hurried along. "An' a teeny little baby cow, too," panted the smaller girl, "an' I fed him." "Well, I guess you could n't 'a' fed him if I had n't held him with the rope," crowed Bobby. "Or if I had n't scared him with my stick!" cut in Tilly. "I guess you ain't the only pebble on the beach, Bobby Mack!" "Good Heavens!" groaned Mr. Wentworth, under his breath. "And have I got to keep two of these little hoodlums for a whole fortnight? Er--children," he said aloud, after the bird's nest had been duly admired; "er--suppose we go and--er--read." Into the house trooped the five chattering boys and girls in the wake of an anxious, perplexed man. Some minutes later the children sat in a stiff row along the wall, while the man, facing them, read aloud from a ponderous calf-bound volume on "The Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion." For some time Mr. Wentworth read without pausing to look up, his sonorous voice filling the room, and his mind wholly given to the subject in hand; then he raised his eyes--and almost dropped the book in his hand: Tommy, the cripple, sat alone. "Why, where--what--" stammered Mr. Wentworth. "They've gone out ter the barn, Mister," explained Tommy cheerfully, pointing to the empty chairs. "Oh!" murmured Mr. Wentworth faintly, as he placed the book on the shelf. "I--er--I think we won't read any more." "Come on, then; let's go to the barn," cried Tommy. And to the barn they went. There were no "Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion" in the barn, but there were fundamental causes of lots of other things, and Mr. Wentworth found that now his words were listened to with more eagerness; and before he knew it, he was almost as excited as were the children themselves. They were really a very intelligent lot of youngsters, he told himself, and the prospect of having two of them for guests did not look so formidable after all. From the barn they went to the garden, from the garden to the pond, from the pond back to the yard; then they all sat down under the apple trees while Mr. Wentworth built them a miniature boat; in days long gone by James Wentworth had loved the sea, and boat-making had been one of his boyhood joys. At four o'clock Mrs. Wentworth called from the house: "James, will you come here a minute, please?" A slow red stole over the man's face as he rose to his feet. The red was a deep crimson by the time he faced his wife. "How are you going to send them home, dear?" she asked. He shook his head. "But it's four o'clock, and we ought to be thinking of it. Which two are you going to keep?" "I--I don't know," he acknowledged.