dusty ground. Beneath his feet, fastening an upward clutch on the legs of his trousers.

There were three large canvas tents directly in front of them, yet no one of these seemed to be the object of dissension, but rather a redwood board, some three feet in length, which was nailed on a tree near by.

"Camp Frolic! Please let us name it Camp Frolic!" cried Bell Winship, with a persuasive twitch of her cousin's sleeve.

"No, no; not Camp Frolic," pleaded Polly Oliver. "Pray, pray let us have Camp Ha-Ha; my heart is set upon it."

"As you are Strong, be merciful," quoted Margery Noble, coaxingly; "take my advice and call it Harmony Camp."

At this juncture, a lovely woman, whose sweet face and smile made you love her at once, came up the hill from the brookside. "What, what! still quarreling, children?" she asked, laughingly. "Let me be peacemaker. I've just asked the Doctor for a name, and he suggests Camp Chaparral. What do you say?"

Bell released one coat-tail. "That is n't wholly bad," she said, critically, while the other girls clapped their hands with approval; for anything that aunt Truth suggested was sure to be quite right.

"Wait a minute, good people," cried Jack Howard, flinging his fishing tackle under a tree and sauntering toward the scene of action. "Suppose we have a referee, a wise and noble judge. Call Hop Yet, and let him decide this all-important subject."

His name being sung and shouted in various keys by the assembled company, Hop Yet appeared at the door of the brush kitchen, a broad grin on his countenance, a plucked fowl in his hand.

Geoffrey took the floor. "Now, Hop Yet, you know I got name, you got name, everybody got name. We want name this camp: you sabe? Miss Bell, she say Camp Frolic. Frolic all same heap good time" (here he executed a sort of war-dance which was intended to express wild joy). "Miss Pauline, she say Camp Ha-Ha, big laugh: sabe? Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" (chorus joined in by all to fully illustrate the subject). "Miss Madge, she say Camp Harmony. Harmony all same heap quiet time, plenty eat, plenty drink, plenty sleep, no fight, no too muchee talk. Mrs. Winship, she say Camp Chaparral you sabe? Chaparral, Hop Yet. Now what you say?"

Hop Yet seemed to regard the question with mingled embarrassment and amusement, but

being a sharp and talkative Chinaman gave his answer promptly: "Me say Camp Chap-lal heap good name; plenty chap-lal all lound; me hang um dish-cloth, tow'l, little boy's stockin', on chap-lal; all same clo'se-line velly good. Miss Bell she flolic, Miss Polly she ha! ha! allee same Camp Chap-lal." *

And so Camp Chaparral it was; the redwood board flaunted the assertion before the eyes of the public (which was a rather limited one, to be sure) in less than half an hour, and the artist, after painting the words in rustic letters a foot long, cut branches of the stiff, ungracious bushes and nailed them to the tree in confirmation and illustration of the fact. He then carefully deposited the paint-pot in a secret place, where it might be out of sight and touch of a certain searching eye and mischievous hand well known and feared of him; but before the setting sun had dropped below the line of purple mountain tops, a small boy, who will be known in these annals as Dicky Winship, might have been seen sitting on the empty paint-pot, while from a dingy pool upon the ground he was attempting to paint a copy of the aforesaid inscription upon the side of a too patient goat, who saw no harm in the operation. He was alone and very, very happy.

And now I must tell you the way in which all this began. You may not realize it, dear young folks, but this method of telling a story is very much the fashion with grown-up people, and of course I am not to blame, since I did n't begin it.

The plan is this: You must first write a chapter showing all your people, men, women, children, dogs, and cats, in a certain place, doing certain things. Then you must go back a year or two and explain how they all happen to be there. Perhaps you may have to drag your readers twenty-five years into the regions of the past, and show them the first tooth of your oldest character; but that does n't matter a bit, —the further the better. Then, when everybody has forgotten what came to pass in the first chapter, you are ready to take it up again, as if there had never been any parenthesis. However, I shall not introduce you to the cradles, cribs, or trundle-beds of my merry young campers, but merely ask you to retrace your steps one week, and look upon them in their homes.

On one of the pleasantest streets of a certain little California town stood, and still stands for aught I know, a pretty brown cottage, with its verandas covered with passion

vine and a brilliant rose-garden in front. It is picturesque enough to attract the attention of any passer-by, and if you had chosen to peep through the crevices in the thick vines and look in at the open window, you might have thought it lovelier within than without.

It was a bright day, and the gracious June sunshine flooded the room with yellow light. Three young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, were seated in different parts of the large room, plying industrious crochet needles and tatting shuttles. Three pairs of bright eyes were dancing with fun and gladness; and another pair, the softest and clearest of all, looked out from a broad white bed in the corner, tired eyes, and oh, so patient, for the health-giving breezes wafted in from the blue ocean and carried over mountain tops and vinecovered slopes had so far failed to bring back Elsie Howard's strength and vigor.

The graceful, brown-haired girl, with the bright, laughter-loving face, was Bell Winship. She of the dancing blue eyes, pink cheeks, and reckless little sun-bonnet was Pauline, otherwise Polly Oliver. Did you ever know a Polly without some one of these things? Well, my Polly had them all, and, besides, a saucy freckled nose, a crown of fluffy, reddish-yellow