172 TROTTY’S WEDDING TOUR.

LI did it a puppuss. I put my finger in. J meant to.
Look here! Don’t you tell. I THovGHT you ’D LIKE To
KNOW.”

Of course it was a dreadful thing to do! And of course
neither Jake nor I would want another boy to do it! But of
course — or at least I thought so— it was too much of a story
to be thrown away.

“T like that,” said Nate, as Lill finished reading, and began
to cut and stitch the story nicely into its place.

“You would n’t catched me doing that!” pronounced
Trotty with a confident smile. “Nor I don’t believe any
other man did, much. It would n’t hurt so much to be a
dunce.”

“Tt was true,” said Lill. ‘Somebody told me so,—at
least, she said it was true boys sometimes put their fingers in,
to get out of the mill; I don’t know as it was to go to school,
on the whole; I don’t remember.”

“Tt seems to me a very common story,” observed Merle,
feeling of her “emerald” ear-rings. “Factory people are .
such common people! ”’.

“T think some people are just as good as other people,”
said Lill, hotly. She and Merle never did get along.

Trotty had to limp off and beg a ginger-snap of the new
girl for Merle, before she “ came round.”