THE WOULDBEGOODS
awfully waxy. All the men are out in the fields, and they haven't any spare milk-pans. If I were a farmer, I must say I wouldn't stick at an extra milk-pan or two. Accidents must happen sometimes. I call it mean."
Dicky spoke in savage tones. But Oswald was not so unhappy, first because it wasn't his fault, and next because he is a far-seeing boy.
"Never mind," he said, kindly. "Keep your tail up. We'll get the beastly milk-pan out all right. Come on."
He rushed hastily to the garden and gave a low signifying whistle, which the others know well enough to mean something extra being up.
And when they were all gathered round him he spoke.
"Fellow-countrymen," he said, "we're going to have a rousing good time."
"It's nothing naughty, is it," Daisy asked, "like the last time you had that was rousingly good?"
Alice said "Shish," and Oswald pretended not to hear.
"A precious treasure," he said, "has inadvertently been laid low in the moat by one of us."
"The rotten thing tumbled in by itself," Dicky said.
Oswald waved his hand and said, "Anyhow, it's there. It's our duty to restore it to its sorrowing owners. I say, look here—we're going to drag the moat."
Every one brightened up at this. It was our
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