To Jack, the change was not altogether agreeable. Few boys of the immature age of eleven are devoted to study, and Jack was not one of these few. The freedom which he had enjoyed suited him, and he tried to impress it upon his father that there was no immediate need of his returning to school.

 

"Do you want to grow up a dunce, Jack?" said his father.

 

"I can read and write already," said Jack.

 

"Are you willing to enter upon life with that scanty supply of knowledge?"

 

"Oh, I guess I can get along as well as the average."

 

"I don't know about that. Besides, I want you to do better than the average. I am ambitious for you, if you are not ambitious for yourself."

 

"I don't see what good it does a feller to study so hard," muttered Jack.

 

"You won't study hard enough to do you any harm," said Aunt Rachel, who might be excused for a little sarcasm at the expense of her mischievous nephew.

 

"It makes my head ache to study," said Jack.

 

"Perhaps your head is weak, Jack," suggested his father, slyly.

 

"More than likely," said Rachel, approvingly.

 

So it was decided that Jack should go to school.

 

"I'll get even with Aunt Rachel," thought he. "She's always talking against me, and hectorin' me. See if I don't."

 

An opportunity for getting even with his aunt did not immediately occur. At length a plan suggested itself to our hero. He shrewdly suspected that his aunt's single blessedness, and her occasional denunciations of the married state, proceeded from disappointment.

 

"I'll bet she'd get married if she had a chance," he thought. "I mean to try her, anyway."

 

Accordingly, with considerable effort, aided by a school-fellow, he concocted the following letter, which was duly copied and forwarded to his aunt's address:

 

"DEAR GIRL: Excuse the liberty I have taken in writing to you; but I have seen you often, though you don't know me; and you are the only girl I want to marry. I am not young--I am about your age, thirty-five--and I have a good trade. I have always wanted to be married, but you are the only one I know of to suit me. If you think you can love me, will you meet me in Washington Park, next Tuesday, at four o'clock? Wear a blue ribbon round your neck, if you want to encourage me. I will have a red rose pinned to my coat.

 

"Don't say anything to your brother's family about this. They may not like me, and they may try to keep us apart. Now be sure and come. DANIEL."

 

 

This letter reached Miss Rachel just before Jack went to school one morning. She read it through, first in surprise, then with an appearance of pleasure.

 

"Who's your letter from, Aunt Rachel?" asked Jack, innocently.

 

"Children shouldn't ask questions about what don't concern 'em," said his aunt.

 

"I thought maybe it was a love letter," said he.

 

"Don't make fun of your aunt," said his father, reprovingly.

 

"Jack's question is only a natural one," said Rachel, to her brother's unbounded astonishment. "I suppose I ain't so old but I might be married if I wanted to."

 

"I thought you had put all such thoughts out of your head long ago, Rachel."

 

"If I have, it's because the race of men are so shiftless," said his sister. "They ain't worth marrying."

 

"Is that meant for me?" asked the cooper, good-naturedly.

 

"You're all alike," said Rachel, tossing her head.

 

She put the letter carefully into her pocket, without deigning any explanation.

 

"I suppose it's from some of her old acquaintances," thought her brother, and he dismissed the subject.

 

As soon as she could, Rachel took refuge in her room. She carefully locked the door, and read the letter again.

 

"Who can ............