“You’d like dogs if you could have one like my old Fritz,” began Lloyd, glad of some one to talk to.  Sitting down on the bench that the maid had left, she began talking of him and the pony and the other pets at Locust, At first the boys listened carelessly.  Howell cracked his whip, and Henderson slapped his feet with the ends of the reins he wore.  They were not used to having stories told them, except when they were being scolded, and their mother or the maid told them tales of what happens to bad little boys when they will not obey.  Although Lloyd’s wild ride in a hand-car with one of the two little knights began thrillingly, they listened with one foot out, ready to run at first word of the moral lecture which they thought would surely come at the end.

The poodle had a maid to make it happy and comfortable, every moment of its pampered little life.  The boys had some one to see that they were properly clothed and fed, and their nursery at home looked as if a toy store had been emptied into it.  But no one took any interest in their amusement.  When they asked questions the answer always was, “Oh, run along and don’t bother me now.”  There were no quiet bedtime talks for them to smooth the snarls out of the day.  Their mother was always dining out or receiving company at that time, and their nurse hurried them to sleep with threats of the bugaboos under the bed that would catch them if they were not still.  They suspected that the Little Colonel’s stories would soon lead to a lecture on quarrelling.

Presently they forgot their fears in the interest of the tale.  The youngest boy sidled a little nearer and climbed up on the end of the bench beside her.  Then Howell, dragging his whip behind him, came a step closer, then another, till he too was on the bench beside her.

She had never had such a flattering audience.  They never took their eyes from her face, and listened with such breathless attention that she talked on and on, wondering how long she could hold their interest.

“They listen to me just as people do to Betty,” she thought, proudly.  An hour went by, and half of another, and the bugle blew the first dinner-call.

“Go on,” demanded Howell, edging closer.  “We ain’t hungry.  Are we, Henny?”

“But I must go and get ready for dinner,” said Lloyd, rising.

“Will you tell us some more to-morrow?” begged Howell, holding her skirts with his dirty little hand.

“Yes, yes,” promised Lloyd, laughing and breaking loose from his hold.  “I’ll tell you as many stories as you want.”

It was a rash promise, for next day, no sooner had she finished breakfast and started to take her morning walk around the deck with her father, than the boys were at her heels.  They were eating bananas as they staggered along, and as fast as one disappeared another was dragged out of their blouses, which seemed pouched out all around their waists with an inexhaustible supply.  Up and down they followed her, until Papa Jack began to laugh, and ask what she had done to tame the little savages.