and salt fish seemed to him now most desirable. Placing these refreshments upon the belittered and bedaubed table,- for of course the boys had not been overclean in their cookery; neither had they thought of putting anything away, he knocked over the bottle of essence.

He picked it up, looking rather startled, for on the label was printed plainly "Castor Oil."

"No wonder it run out slow," thought he, staring at it blankly.

He heard his brothers coming, and all in a flutter he hastened to set it back on the shelf. "I'll just keep that shady," he said.

In a quarter of a minute more, Solomon and Jacob had entered the pantry, and found David, with a very red face, sitting in the dish of eggs so carelessly left on the sugarbucket.

To wind up the first day, suffice it to say that the boys retired to bed early, quite tired out with their day's experience. They left

the front door wide open. The pudding remained in soak in the wash-boiler.

"We will set it to boiling in the morning," said Solomon, "and have it for dinner."

The second day we need not dwell on. The butcher's and baker's carts came round, and the boys obtained a plentiful supply of cake, and pies, and bread. The butcher's wares were not patronized, for it was decided by a unanimous voice that cookery was a slow trade," and, as Jacob expressed it, "a little too much like work."

They did not, however, desert the pudding. David's eagerness on this point was not quite on a par with that of his brothers. But this he artfully concealed.

The mammoth pudding boiled merrily all the forenoon. It popped up, it bobbed about in its lumbering way, and had a jolly, bubbling time of it. But it would seem that all this wriggling and bouncing and jiggling was indulged in solely for its own amusement, since, when at noon Solomon punched

it through with the skewer, it was still raw and uneatable.

"I've a good mind to chuck it in the pigtrough,” he exclaimed, savagely.

"No, I wouldn't," objected Jacob, who was "slow to anger; "tie her up and put her back again.”

I cannot tell why he called the pudding " her."

Rather sulkily Solomon dropped his handiwork into the boiler again.

"I don't believe there's any cook to it," he said; "but I'll keep it boiling all day long to-morrow, and see if that'll fetch it."

"I guess it will," replied Jacob; "we'll have it smoking hot for supper. Mother'll relish it, I know."

CHAPTER VII.

A NEW ORDER OF THINGS.

HE long train dashed into the depot.

THE

The heavy brazen bell swung out a dizzy, deafening "ding dong, dong ding, ding ding." There were not a very great many to get out. Most of the passengers were

going on farther.

Among the few that stepped upon the platform were Mrs. Down and Becky.

Mrs. Down tottered rather than walked. Her shoulders were bent; her face, seen through her veil, looked like an old woman's. She seemed aged full twenty years since her departure three days before.

"I can't walk," she said, feebly, to Becky. "We'll take the Accommodation home."

The Accommodation was a small trap

of an omnibus, with window-frames that

were windowless, and a doorway void of a door.

In this well-ventilated and summery conveyance, the town folks, by payment of a fixed fare, could be "accommodated" to and from the depot.

"Here they come!" shouted David, who was on the lookout at the front door. "They're in Noah's Ark."

By the time the "Accommodation" had rattled up to the house, the other two boys had run out.

Such a chorus of exclamations as there were !

"O, mother," cried Solomon, "supper is all ready."

"O, mother," said Jacob, "the pudding's done."

"O, mother," put in David, in his turn, "I've been looking for you this ever so long."

Their mother tried to smile, but quite broke down. She could hardly speak to them.

"Mother is not well," explained Becky,