Fluke threw down his fiddle with an oath. "I said that you and I should quarrel." "I would not strike my twin-brother for all the false men and foolish girls in Christendom!" said Gurdon, standing before Fluke's threat, with folded arms, and such a look at him that Fluke came to himself, wincing. "We may as well go home," he said sulkily. The young men of the world watched this scene with amusement not untempered with choler, while they proceeded elaborately to assist the pretty Basins, who were wrapping themselves in their thin shawls. "I fancy we are not to be trusted to escort these young ladies home?" said "Sid," with an elegant sarcastic inclination toward Gurdon. "No," said poor Gurdon stonily. For he had played for them with a gracious heart all the evening, and it was hard to be hated. But he marshalled his flock away without flinching. XV THE BROTHERS "There 's got to be a new deal to me in this world pretty soon," said Wesley, "or I shall kick." I found him among the clam flats, leaning his spent and hopeless being on his rake. "What is it, Wesley?" "Belle O'Neill got me to help her set a trap to ketch a mink and a fox; she said we should git two dollars apiece; and we caught--we caught Miss Pray's tom-cat!" Wesley rubbed his grimy hand across his eyes. "She scolded awful and told us to go down to the clam flats and not to come home till we'd got two bushels o' clams for the hens. Fast as I get a roller full and go over and emp'y 'em on the bank the crows come 'n' eat 'em up--look a' there!" I saw. "Wesley, your load does seem greater than you can bear." He wore trousers of a style prevalent among the Basins, of meal sacks; only his were not shaped at all--there was simply a sack for each leg, tied with gathering strings at the ankles. His jacket was as much too small for his stout little person as his trousers were voluminous; and Miss Pray, who was artistic by freaks, had made it with an impertinent little tail like a bird's tail. Wesley was not only afflicted, he was ludicrous in the face of high heaven. "There 's got to be a new deal," blubbered he, with his fist in his eyes, "or I shall kick." "_Could_ you kick in those trousers, Wesley?" I said. He regarded me curiously, then replied with evident faith: "I could, nights." "Ah! I'm so lame that I couldn't even kick much, nights, Wesley." His countenance changed from its self-pity; he removed the fist from his eyes. "I've always wondered," he said, "'t you didn't kick more." "Where is Belle O'Neill?" "I told 'er 't she'd got me to set the trap, 'nd she orter, 't least, keep the crows off'n the clams; but she went over to Lunette's and borrowed the book, 'n' she's settin' there in the graves, where Miss Pray can't see her, readin' it." I sighed to think how early, among his other trials, Wesley was learning the frailties of the lovable sex. "I will go up and keep the crows off of the clams for you, Wesley."