"We haven't come on this trip to lie abed in the morning," his pardner returned with some solemnity.

I know not why you should, Sir; She's where she ought, abed with young Alcippus.

"Naow," began Abe at length, "this is somep'n that requires keerful debatin'.

" "Yew got the pip!" retorted Captain Darby contemptuously, and trotting quickly around to the side of the bed, he seized Abe by the shoulders and began to drag him out upon the floor, crying again, "Git up!"

He fairly ran to the back door under the grape arbor, so that Samuel, observing his gait, was seized with a fear that he might be that young Abe of the Beach, during his visit, after all.

Angy drew near to Abe, and Abe to Angy.

He heard, in a vague, far-off voice, men talking: "We'll catch old Abe on our next trip ef we go on like thiseh, Ben?" "I reckon.

Little Samuel Darby paused at the foot of the bed and stared at Abe without saying a word, while Abe fixed his dim, distressed eyes on his visitor with a dumb appeal for assistance.

When he awoke there were the sisters again; and day after day they spent their combined efforts in keeping him on his back and forcing him to take his medicine, the only appreciable good resulting therefrom being the fact that with this tax upon their devotion the old ladies came once more to regard Abe as the most precious possession of the Home.

" "Tew cents on the second hunderd," said Abe for the tenth time.

What the projector of the trip was really trying to recall was how many times that day he had regretted saving Abe from the devastating clutches of the old ladies.

" At this Cossinius looked at me and said: "I have heard you relate that, when you were in Liburnia, you saw women big with child bringing in fire wood and at the same time carrying a nursing child, or even two of them, thus putting to shame those slender reeds, the women of our class, who are wont to lie abed under mosquito bars for days at a time when they are pregnant.

He heard Piggy dare Abe across the creek, and call him a cowardly calf, and say, "Any one't 'ull take a dare'll steal sheep."