A boy ought always to stand up for his sister, and protect her from everybody, and do everything to make her happy, for she can only be his sister once, and he would be so awfully sorry if she died and then he remembered that his conduct towards her had sometimes been such.

Mr. Withers doesn't come to our house any more. One night Sue saw him coming up the garden-walk, and father said, "There's the other one coming, Susan; isn't this Travers's evening?" and then Sue said, "I do wish somebody would protect me from him he is that stupid don't I wish I need never lay eyes on him again."

I made up my mind that nobody should bother my sister while she had a brother to protect her. So the next time I saw Mr. Withers I spoke to him kindly and firmly—that's the way grown-up people speak when they say something dreadfully unpleasant—and told him what Sue had said about him, and that he ought not to bother her any more. Mr. Withers didn't thank me and say that he knew I was trying to do him good, which was what he ought to have said, but he looked as if he wanted to hurt somebody, and walked off without saying a word to me, and I don't think he was polite about it.

He has never been at our house since. When I told Sue how I had protected her she was so overcome with gratitude that she couldn't speak, and just motioned me with a book to go out of her room and leave her to feel thankful about it by herself. The book very nearly hit me on the head, but it wouldn't have hurt much if it had.

Mr. Travers was delighted about it, and told me that I had acted like a man, and that he shouldn't forget it. The next day he brought me a beautiful book all about traps. It told how to make mornahundred different kinds of traps that would catch everything, and it was one of the best books I ever saw.

Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Schofield, keeps pigs, only he don't keep them enough, for they run all around. They come into our garden and eat up everything, and father said he would give almost anything to get rid of them.

Now one of the traps that my book told about was just the thing to catch pigs with. It was made out of a young tree and a rope. You bend the tree down and fasten the rope to it so as to make a slippernoose, and when the pig walks into the slippernoose the tree flies up and jerks him into the air.

I thought that I couldn't please father better than to make some traps and catch some pigs; so I got a rope, and got two Irishmen that were fixing the front walk to bend down two trees for me and hold them while I made the traps. This was just before supper, and I expected that the pigs would come early the next morning and get caught.

It was bright moonlight that evening, and Mr. Travers and Sue said the house was so dreadfully hot that they would go and take a walk. They hadn't been out of the house but a few minutes when we heard an awful shriek from Sue, and we all rushed out to see what was the matter.

Mr. Travers had walked into a trap, and was swinging by one leg, with his head about six feet from the ground. Nobody knew him at first except me, for when a person is upside down he doesn't look natural; but I knew what was the matter, and told father that it would take two men to bend down the tree and get Mr. Travers loose. So they told me to run and get Mr. Schofield to come and help, and they got the step-ladder so that Sue could sit on the top of it and hold Mr. Travers's head.

I was so excited that I forgot all about the other trap, and, besides, Sue had said things to me that hurt my feelings, and that prevented me from thinking to tell Mr. Schofield not to get himself caught. He ran ahead of me, because he was so anxious to help, and the first thing I knew there came an awful yell from him, and up he went into the air, and hung there by both legs, which I suppose was easier than the way Mr. Travers hung.

Then everybody went at me in the most dreadful way, except Sue, who was holding Mr. Travers's head. They said the most unkind things to me, and sent me into the house. I heard afterwards that father got Mr. Schofield's boy to climb up and cut Mr. Travers and Mr. Schofield loose, and they fell on the gravel, but it didn't hurt them much, only Mr. Schofield broke some of his teeth, and says he is going to bring a lawsuit against father. Mr. Travers was just as good as he could be. He only laughed the next time he saw me, and he begged them not to punish me, because it was his fault that I ever came to know about that kind of trap.

Mr. Travers is the nicest man that ever lived, except father, and when he marries Sue I shall go and live with him, though I haven't told him yet, for I want to keep it as a pleasant surprise for him.