“Why, father!” exclaimed Johnnie, recovering from a short tussle with the poor hen, “how funny that you should be here.”

“No stranger than that you should be here, I think.  Where, if I have any right to ask, are you going?”

“To Lake Michigan,” replied Johnnie composedly.  “Oh, I do wish this old hen would keep still!”

“Then you have fifty miles before you,” said Mr. Lord.

“Yes, sir,” replied Johnnie, “but it would have been a thousand miles to the ocean, you know.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” roared Mr. Ford, mystified, but unable to control himself any longer at sight of Johnnie and the hen, and patient-faced Chips clutching the ham.

“I am glad you don’t mind, father,” said Johnnie.  “I thought it would be so nice for you and mother and Mrs. Wood not to have Chips and me to worry about any more.”

“It was very thoughtful of you,” replied Mr. Ford, remembering the anxious faces at home.  “And what are you going to do at Lake Michigan?”

“Take a boat and go away and get wrecked on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe,” responded Johnnie glibly, at the same time hitching the hen up higher under his arm.

“And how about Chips?”

“Oh, I’m Man Friday,” chirped Chips, his poor little face quite black enough for the character.

“I am so sorry we had to tell you so soon,” said Johnnie.  “We were keeping it a secret until we got to the lake; then we were going to send you a letter.”

Mr. Ford looked gravely into his son’s grimy face.  It was an honest face, and Johnnie had always been a truthful boy, and just now seemed only troubled by the restless behavior of his hen; so the father rightly concluded that the blue and gold book had captivated him into the belief that what he and Chips were doing was admirable and heroic.

“What part is the hen going to play?” asked the gentleman.  “Is she going to help stock your island?”

“Oh, no, but we couldn’t get along without her, because she’s going to lay eggs along the way.”

“Lay eggs?”

“Yes, for our lunch.  At first we weren’t going to take anything but the hen, but Chips said he liked ham and eggs better’n anything, so we decided to take it.”

Another pause; then Mr. Ford said:  “You both look tired, haven’t you had enough of it?  I’m going home now.”

“No, no,” asserted the boys.

“And have you thought of your mothers, whom you didn’t even kiss good-by?”

Johnnie stood on one leg and twisted the other foot around it, after his manner when troubled.

“I thought you knew, Johnnie, that nothing ever turns out right when you undertake it without first consulting mother.”

“I wish now I’d kissed mine good-by,” observed Friday thoughtfully.

“Come, we’ll go back together,” said Mr. Ford quietly, moving off as he spoke, “and we will see what Mrs. Wood and mother have to say on the subject.”