"Ma!" said Willy Merryweather.

"Baa!" replied his mother, without looking up from her writing.

Willy fidgeted, and looked over his shoulder. "Mammy, I wish you would speak to Kitty."

"Speak to Kitty? certainly. How do you do, Kitty?"

Willy looked uncomfortable, but went on.

"I spoke for the Rangeley boat, and now she wants it. She always wants it, and it isn't fair."

"I don't always want it, Willy! I haven't been in it for two days. I think you are very unkind."

By this time Mrs. Merryweather had finished her sentence; she looked up, and surveyed the two children with a half-abstracted gaze.

"Who are you?" she asked, abruptly. "I thought Kitty and Willy were here."

Kitty took hold of the hem of her apron, and Willy felt of the knife in his pocket.

"Who are you?" repeated Mrs. Merryweather in a tone of wonder. "You should always answer a question, you know."

"We are Kitty and Willy ourselves!" murmured the children, the red beginning to creep around their ears.

"Oh, no!" said Mrs. Merryweather, reprovingly. "Don't say such things as that, my dears. I know Kitty and Willy perfectly well; they are brother and sister, two cheerful, affectionate children, who love each other. I don't know anything about you two; run away, please, for I am busy."

As the children moved slowly away, she called after them: "If you should see Kitty and Willy, you might send them to me, if you please!"

Round on the other side of the big oak-tree, sheltered from the eyes that looked so abstractedly over their glasses, Willy rubbed his shoulders uncomfortably against the bark, while Kitty kicked a bit of stick to and fro.

"There isn't any use in talking to Mammy when she does that way!" said Willy, half to himself, but with a side glance at Kitty. "If she would have only listened to me—"

"She never will!" said Kitty, responding to the half glance. "She always says there is no need of quarrelling, and she doesn't see why she should have to hear disagreeable remarks."

"Other children scrap," said Willy. "I don't see why we can't now and then."

"Well, she just won't have it, Will, so where's the use? Never mind about the Rangeley; you may have it, and I'll take the Wobbler."

"I don't care!" said Willy. "You may have her."

"So may you!"

Silence. Willy rubbing his shoulders, Kitty kicking her bit of stick.

Presently Kitty looked up brightly, and shook her curls back. "I've got over mine, Willy!" she announced. "Are you getting over yours?"

"Ye-es!" said Willy, slowly. "I—s'pose I am."

"Why don't we go together?" asked Kitty. "Then we can both have the Rangeley."

"All right!" said Willy, brightening at once. "Where shall we go? We might play Pirate a bit—"

"And then go for the milk! That would be great!"

"All right, come on, Kit."

"Oh! but, Willy—"

"Well?"

"We must go and tell Mammy first."

Once more the two children presented themselves before their mother, who was still writing busily. At the first "Mammy!" she looked up quickly.

"Well, dears!" she said, "I was wondering where you were. What are you going to play this afternoon?"

"We thought perhaps we might have the Rangeley together, and play Pirate!" said Willy.

"And then go for the milk!" said Kitty.

"To be sure!" said Mrs. Merryweather. "Yes, Papa said you might have the boat if you wanted it. That will be very nice, only be careful, dears. Give Mammy a kiss, and have a great good time."

"Run her up!" said the Pirate Captain.

"Ay, ay, sir!" replied the mate.

The Jolly Roger fluttered up to the mast-head: skull and crossbones black as ink could make them, ground very nearly white; it was a splendid flag. The Captain was a terrible figure, clad in yellow oilskins many sizes too big for him, with ferocious mustaches curling up to his eyes. His belt contained a perfect armory of weapons; item, a pistol that had lost its barrel; item, three wooden daggers, assorted sizes; item, one tomahawk, home-made. The mate was scarcely less terrifying, for though a blue petticoat showed beneath his oilskin jacket, and curls flowed from under his sou'wester, he made up for it by a mass of oakum beard and whisker that was truly awe-inspiring. Also, he had the truncheon which used to be a curling stick, and a deadly weapon of singular appearance which was understood to be a boomerang.

"Look out, Bill! avast there! dost see any foes about?"

"Ay, ay, sir! I see a craft on the jib boom—"

"Lee bow, Kitty!—I mean Bill; not jib boom! You are always saying that."

"I meant lee bow!" said Bill, anxious to please. "Anyhow, I see a craft, your Honor. I think she is a plate ship from the Spanish Main. Shall we run her down?"

"Give me the glass!" exclaimed the Pirate Captain: and through that instrument, which the ignorant might have mistaken for a battered tin horn, he scrutinized the "craft," which lay on the water at some distance.

"'Tis not a plate ship!" he announced at length. "I think we have had enough plate ships lately. This is a Dutch lugger from Samarcand, laden with raisins and fig-paste and lichi nuts and cream dates. I shouldn't wonder if she had narghiles too, and scimitars,—I need a new scimitar,—and all sorts of things. Up helm, and crowd on all sail in pursuit!"

"Ay, ay, sir! stunsels?"

"Stunsels, balloon-jibs, topgallant spinnakers, royal skyscrapers, everything you can think of. Ha! we are off! Row hard now, Bill! The lubbers are asleep, and we shall run them down easily. Are the cutlasses ready?"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

"Ho! we are gaining on them. Ho, ho! bend to your oars, my hearties! grappling-chains ready there! ho! on to the chase!"

Now Phil was very busy making a fly for lake trout, and explaining the manufacture of it to Peggy; and Peggy was absorbed in watching him, and in counting the number of separate aches she felt after her first lesson in rowing. Moreover, the bloody pirates had conducted their conversation in a half-whisper, and the wind was the other way. But suddenly, Peggy looked up and saw them, now at only a few yards distance.

"Good gracious!" she cried. "What is it? Do look, Phil!"

Phil looked hastily around; chuckled, and fell into an attitude of abject terror. "Mercy! mercy!" he cried; cowering down in his seat. ("It's the kids; please be frightened!) Oh! what will become of us? We are lost!"

"Oh! save me, spare me!" cried Peggy, following suit, and clasping her hands in supplication.

The pirate bark ran alongside, and grappling- irons were tossed aboard the ill-fated merchantman. The Pirate Captain, standing in the stern of his vessel, surveyed them with baleful looks.

"What ship is this?"

"The Weeping Woodchuck, Captain Zebedee Moses of Squedunk, please your Honor's Worship!"

"Well I am Captain England, and this is the Gory Griffin. If you have a cargo of raisins and fig-paste and cream dates, hand them over; otherwise, prepare to walk the plank this instant!"

"Oh, spare us! spare this tender maiden!" cried Phil. "I have no fig-paste, but wouldn't fresh doughnuts do as well, O man of blood? Life is sweet—and fish is needed for supper!"

At these remarks the pirate's ferocious scowl relaxed somewhat. "Hand over your doughnuts!" he said, briefly. "This once I spare ye, but cross not my path again! I jolly well forgot about tea," he added, as Phil tossed him some doughnuts; "I suppose it must be about time to go for the milk, perhaps, is it?"

Phil looked at his watch. "Well, I should say it jolly well was!" he replied. "You'd better be off, young ones—I mean Scourges of the Deep!"

It was quite a pull over to the point where the milk-cans were waiting, but Kitty and Willy were both good oars, and the doughnuts were crisp and fortifying.

"Let's take the point by storm!" suggested the gallant England, who had not had his fill of glory. "The cans might be treasure, you know, and we can creep up silently."

"But there's no one to hear us be silent!" said Kitty.

"Oh, that's nothing! We can hear ourselves, and, anyhow, it is good practice. Come on, now! Be silent as the grave!" Leaving the boat on the shore, they crept up the beach, pounced on the milk-can,—a tall "separator" which held the whole provision for the family supper and breakfast,—and bore it in triumph to the boat. But, alas! for the gallant pirates! In getting aboard, one of them slipped; the other stumbled; between the two, neither could tell just how, the tall can toppled, and fell into the boat; the stopper flew out—"Then all the mighty floods were out!"

"But where can the children be?" asked Mrs. Merryweather, for the tenth time.

The horn had blown for supper, the fish were fried, the campers were hungry and thirsty; and the milk had not come.

"Where can they be?" said every one.

Mr. Merryweather put down the glass with which he had been sweeping the lake. "They are out there!" he said. "I see them, but they don't seem to be rowing. Give me the megaphone, will you, Jerry? Thanks!"

A calm roar went out across the lake. "Come—in—to—tea!"

A faint pipe was heard in reply. "Don't—want—any—tea!"

The second roar was still calm, but peremptory. "Come—in!"

Slowly, very slowly, the oars rose and fell, and the boat crept over the water. What could be the matter with the children?

"Too much bloodshed has upset the gallant England!" said Phil. "When it comes to Willy's not wanting his tea!"

"They have had some accident!" said Mr. Merryweather. "Broken an oar, probably, or lost a rowlock. No. They are both rowing. Well, here they come."

The whole family started for the wharf, but a piteous wail arose from the now approaching boat.

"Please don't everybody come down! we want just Papa and Mamma."

"Stay here, dear people, please!" said Mrs. Merryweather; and both parents hurried down to the wharf, toward which two dejected little figures were now tugging a very heavy boat.

"What's the matter, Will?" said Mr. Merryweather. "Speak up, son."

"We—spilt the milk!" said Willy, in a carefully measured tone.

"Oh, my dears! all of it?" inquired their mother.

"Every drop!" said Willy, grimly.

"Oh, Mammy, we are so sorry!" cried Kitty. "The old can—just—upset! and we are so wet, and it keeps splashing all over my legs!"

"There! there! come ashore; never mind about the milk!" said Mr. Merryweather.

"Never mind!" echoed Mrs. Merryweather, heartily. "My poor chicks, where have you been all this time? Why didn't you come straight home?"

"We were—afraid!" sobbed Kitty. "We have been rowing around for ever and ever so long, and we are so tired, and hungry, and—wet—"

But by this time Kitty was near enough for her father to bend down and lift her bodily out of the boat, and put her, all dripping milk as she was, into her mother's arms. On her mother's shoulder she sobbed out the rest of the pitiful little story. Kitty was twelve, and not specially small of her age; but she was the baby, and Mrs. Merryweather sat down on the wharf and rocked to and fro, hushing her.

"There! there!" she said, soothingly. "My lamb! as if all the milk in the world were worth your crying about! and crying into the spilt milk, too, and making the boat all the wetter! Hush! hush! Run along, Papa and Willy—dear little boy, it really is only funny, so don't fret, not one little scrap. Kitty and I will come in about two minutes."