“Could you stand up on my soldiers, like the man at the show?” demanded Australia.

“I’d fall off,” said Europena.

“’Fraid-cat!” taunted her sister, in disgust.  “Do you reckon you could hol’ the chair while I climbed up on the back?”

“It ain’t got no bottom.”

“Well, it don’t need to have no bottom if I’m goin’ to stand on its back,” said Australia, sharply.  Leaders of great enterprises must of necessity turn deaf ears to words of discouragement.

“You might git killed,” persisted Europena.

“’T wouldn’t matter,” said Australia, loftily; “’t wouldn’t be but the seventh time.  I got three more times to die.  ’Fore you was borned I was drowned out in the country, that was one time; then I fell in the ash-bar’l and was dead, that’s two times; an’—­an’ then I et the stove-polish, that’s four times; an’ I can’t ’member, but the nex’ time will be seven.  I don’t keer how much I git killed, till it’s eight times, then I’m goin’ to be good all the time, ‘cause when you are dead nine times they put you in a hole an’ throw dirt on you!”

Australia had become so absorbed in her theory of reincarnation that she had forgotten the paint, but the bottomless chair recalled it.

“Now, you lay ‘crost the chair, Europena, an’ I’ll climb up,” she commanded.

Europena, though violently opposed to the undertaking, would not forsake her leader at a critical moment.  She had uttered her protest, had tried in vain to stem the current of events; nothing was left her now but to do or die.  She valiantly braced her small body across the frame of the chair, and Australia began her perilous ascent.

Cuba looked mildly astonished as the plump figure of the little girl appeared above his feed-box.

“I ’ve ’most got it!” cried Australia, reaching as high as possible, and getting her forefinger over the edge of the big can.

At this juncture Cuba, whose nose had doubtless been tickled by Australia’s apron-string, gave a prodigious sneeze.  Europena, feeling that retribution was upon them, fled in terror.  The ballast being removed from the chair, the result was inevitable.  A crash, a heterogeneous combination of small girl, green paint, and shattered chair, then a series of shrieks that resembled the whistles on New Year’s eve!

Redding was the first to the rescue.  He had just driven Billy to the gate when the screams began, and with a bound he was out of the buggy and rushing to the scene of disaster.  The picture that met his eyes staggered him.  Australia, screaming wildly, lay in what appeared to his excited vision to be a pool of green blood; Europena was jumping up and down beside her, calling wildly for her mother, while Cuba, with ears erect and a green liquid trickling down his nose, sternly surveyed the wreck.  In a moment Redding had Australia in his arms, and was mopping the paint from her face and hair.

“There, there, little sister, you aren’t much hurt!” he was saying, as Mrs. Wiggs and Asia rushed in.