I have been in the back bedroom up stairs all the afternoon, and I am expecting father every minute. It was just after one o'clock when he told me to come up stairs with him, and just then Mr. Thompson came to get him to go down town with him, and father said I'd have to excuse him for a little while and don't you go out of that room till I come back. So I excused him, and he hasn't come back yet; but I've opened one of the pillows and stuffed my clothes full of feathers, and I don't care much how soon he comes back now.

It's an awful feeling to be waiting up stairs for your father, and to know that you have done wrong, though you really didn't mean to do so much wrong as you have done. I am willing to own that nobody ought to take anybody's clothes when he's in swimming, but anyhow they began it first, and I thought just as much as could be that the clothes were theirs.

The real boys that are to blame are Tom Wilson and Amzi Willetts. A week ago Saturday Joe Hamilton and I went in swimming down at the island. It's a beautiful place. The island is all full of bushes, and on one side the water is deep, where the big boys go in, and on the other it is shallow, where we fellows that can't swim very much where the water is more than two feet deep go in. While Joe and I were swimming, Tom and Amzi came and stole our clothes, and put them in their boat, and carried them clear across to the deep part of the river. We saw them do it, and we had an awful time to get the clothes back, and I think it was just as mean.

Joe and I said we'd get even with them, and I know it was wrong, because it was a revengeful feeling, but anyhow we said we'd do it: and I don't think revenge is so very bad when you don't hurt a fellow, and wouldn't hurt him for anything, and just want to play him a trick that is pretty nearly almost quite innocent. But I don't say we did right, and when I've done wrong I'm always ready to say so.

Well, Joe and I watched, and last Saturday we saw Tom and Amzi go down to the island, and go in swimming on the shallow side; so we waded across and sneaked down among the bushes, and after a while we saw two piles of clothes. So we picked them up and ran away with them. The boys saw us, and made a terrible noise; but we sung out that they'd know now how it felt to have your clothes carried off, and we waded back across the river, and carried the clothes up to Amzi's house, and hid them in his barn, and thought that we'd got even with Tom and Amzi, and taught them a lesson which would do them a great deal of good, and would make them good and useful men.

This was in the morning about noon, and when I had my dinner I thought I'd go and see how the boys liked swimming, and offer to bring back their clothes if they'd promise to be good friends. I never was more astonished in my life than I was to find that they were nowhere near the island. I was beginning to be afraid they'd been drowned, when I heard some men calling me, and I found Squire Meredith and Amzi Willetts's father, who is a deacon, hiding among the bushes. They told me that some villains had stolen their clothes while they were in swimming, and they'd give me fifty cents if I'd go up to their houses and get their wives to give me some clothes to bring down to them.

I said I didn't want the fifty cents, but I'd go and try to find some clothes for them. I meant to go straight up to Amzi's barn and to bring the clothes back, but on the way I met Amzi with the clothes in a basket bringing them down to the island, and he said: "Somebody's goin' to be arrested for stealing father's and Squire Meredith's clothes. I saw the fellows that stole 'em, and I'm going to tell." You see, Joe and I had taken the wrong clothes, and Squire Meredith and Deacon Willetts, who had been in swimming on the deep side of the island, had been about two hours trying to play they were Zulus, and didn't need to wear any clothes, only they found it pretty hard work.

Deacon Willetts came straight to our house, and told father that his unhappy son—that's what he called me, and wasn't I unhappy, though—had stolen his clothes and Squire Meredith's; but for the sake of our family he wouldn't say very much about it, only if father thought best to spare the rods and spoil a child, he wouldn't be able to regard him as a man and a brother. So father called me and asked me if I had taken Deacon Willetts's clothes, and when I said yes, and was going to explain how it happened, he said that my conduct was such, and that I was bringing his gray hairs down, only I wouldn't hurt them for fifty million dollars, and I've often heard him say he hadn't a gray hair in his head.

And now I'm waiting up stairs for the awful moment to arrive. I deserve it, for they say that Squire Meredith and Deacon Willetts are mornhalf eaten up by mosquitoes, and are confined to the house with salt and water, and crying out all the time that they can't stand it. I hope the feathers will work, but if they don't, no matter. I think I shall be a missionary, and do good to the heathen. I think I hear father coming in the front gate now, so I must close.