"Yes--yes, and you had to go jumping
around like a parched pea, and frightening
the beautiful merle, the thrush, away!"
complained Una, aggrieved. "Oh! how
did you ever learn to mimic its call, at
all?" she cried, catching at the wrist
of the human merle, now very practically
engaged in toasting bacon-strips on the
end of a stick.

"My brother taught me; my only
brother, Stud--Studley--Studart they
nickname him in camp--I don't know
why," was the fluttering response.

"A corruption of Stoutheart, I should
say!" supplied the Guardian, now
busily frying flapjacks. "Of all the Boy
Scouts in my husband's troop, he's the
lion-heart," laughingly. "So I understand
"

"Yes, oh! yes, but he 's so-o nice, with
it," cooed the merle's brown-eyed "mate.
"He has never--oh! never--squeezed
me out of anything, just because I was
a girl; always said that two--two two--
[[114]]

p113 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p114w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p115

v?