fast that Peter could hardly see them go.




VI

AB'M's BIRTHDAY PARTY


The robbers were caught, and were lodged in the county jail,
and all the farmers who had hen-roosts robbed, and the farmers'
wives who had their doughnuts stolen, kept coming over to the
little brown house or stopping Mrs. Pepper after church on
Sunday to thank her for what her boy had done, until it got so
that when Joel saw a bonnet coming along the dusty road, or a
wagon stop in front, he would run and hide.

"I won't have 'em put their hands on my head and call me good
boy," he cried, shaking his black hair viciously. "I'll kick
'em--so there!" So one day, when he caught sight of a wagon just
about to stop, he ran, as usual, as fast as he could, off over
to Grandma Bascom's.

"Now that's too bad," said a big tall woman, who got out of the
wagon and made her way up to the door, "for Mis' Beebe said in
partic'ler I was to bring Joel, an' he ain't to home."

"Go and call him, Polly," said Mrs. Pepper, "Come in, won't you,
and sit down?"