At last Mrs. March said:--

"Rob, let Nelly speak first: ladies before gentlemen, always." And the impatient Rob reluctantly kept silent while Nelly told the tale.

Mrs. March's face grew sad as the story went on. It was a terrible thing to her to think of her little daughter attacked in the street in that way by rude boys.

"Now, oughtn't I to have thrashed them, mamma?" cried Rob, encouraged by the indignation in his mother's face: "oughtn't I to?

But Nell she just pulled me into the store by main force; and I felt so mean. I felt as if I looked just like Trotter when he puts his tail between his legs and runs away from a big dog. I don't care: I'll thrash that ugly black-eyed boy yet,--the one that spoke to Nelly; sha'n't I, mamma? Wouldn't you? I know you would! And mayn't I wear the yoke again, just to show them I ain't afraid?"

"Keep cool, Rob," said Mrs. March; "keep cool!"

"I can't keep cool, mamma," said Rob, almost crying; "and you couldn't, either,--you know you couldn't!"

"Perhaps not, dear; but I'd try," replied his mother. "Nothing else does any good ever."

"Well, mayn't I wear the yoke, anyhow?" said Rob. "I won't go into Rosita ever again unless I can!"

"Rob," said his mother, earnestly, "if you were going across a field where there was a bull, you wouldn't wear a red cloak: would you? It would be very silly, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," said Rob, slowly and very reluctantly. He saw what his mother meant.

"That's just what I said," interrupted Nelly: "I said it would be very silly to wear them any more. The boys would never let us alone if we did."

"Nelly is right," said Mrs. March: "it would be just as silly to carry a piece of red cloth and flourish it in the eyes of the bull, when you know that the sight of red cloth always makes bulls angry."

"I don't care if it does make them all set on me," said Rob: "after I've thrashed them once, they'll let me alone. Anyhow, I won't go unless I can wear it; I know that much: I'd feel like a sneak."

"Of course you'll do as you like about that, my dear boy," replied Mrs. March: "you never need go up to Rosita, if you would rather not. You know it was all your own plan, yours and Nelly's, going up there to sell things. Your papa and I would never have thought of it."

"Well," said Rob, half crying, "but there's all the money I make: we'd lose all that, if I don't go. Nell couldn't carry the trout besides all the b.u.t.ter and eggs."

"I know it," replied his mother; "but that isn't any reason for your doing what you feel would make you seem like a sneak. We wouldn't have you feel like that for any thing."

Poor Rob was very unhappy. He didn't see any way out of his dilemma.

He wished he hadn't said he would not go up into Rosita without his yoke.

"Anyhow, I'll ask papa," he said.

"Yes," replied his mother, "of course you will talk it all over with him; and perhaps you'll feel differently about it after that. Let it all go now, and try to forget it."

"I'm not going to think any more about it," said Nelly. "I don't care for those boys: they're too rude for any thing. I sha'n't ever look at one of them; but you wouldn't catch me wearing that yoke again, I tell you!"

"That's because you're a girl," said Rob. "If you were a boy, you'd feel just exactly as I do. Oh, goodness! don't I wish you had been a boy, Nell? If you had, we two together could thrash that whole crowd quicker'n wink!"

"I shouldn't fight, if I were a boy," said Nelly: "I think it is beneath a boy to fight. It's just like dogs and cats: they fight with their teeth and claws; and boys fight with their fists."

"Teeth, too," said Rob, grimly.

"Do they?" cried Nelly, in a tone of horror. "Do they really? Oh, Rob! did you ever bite a boy?"

"Not many times," said Rob; "but sometimes you have to."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not a boy," said Nelly: "that's all I've got to say. The idea of biting!"

To Mrs. March's great surprise, she found, when she talked the affair over with her husband, that he was inclined to sympathize with Rob's feeling.

"I don't like to have the boy give it up," said Mr. March. "You don't know boys as well as I do, Sarah. They'll taunt him every time he goes through the street. I half wish Nelly hadn't hindered him from giving one of them a good, sound thrashing. He could do it."

"Why, Robert!" exclaimed Mrs. March-"you don't mean to tell me that you would be willing to have your son engage in a street fight?"

"Well, no," laughed Mr. March: "not exactly that; but there might be circ.u.mstances under which I should knock a man down: if he insulted you, for instance; and there might come times in a boy's life when I should think it praiseworthy in him to give another boy a thrashing, and I think this was one of them."

"Well, for mercy's sake, don't tell Rob so," said Mrs. March: "he's hot-headed enough now; and, if he had a free permission beforehand from you to knock boys down, I don't know where he'd stop."

While Mr. and Mrs. March were talking, Billy came in. He had heard the story of the morning's adventures from a teamster who had been on the street when it happened; and Billy had walked all the way in from Pine's ranch, to--as he said in his clumsy, affectionate way--"see ef I couldn't talk the youngsters out of their notion about them yokes."

"'Tain't no use," he said: "an' ye won't find a man on the street but'll tell ye the same thing. 'Tain't no use flyin' in the face o'

natur' with boys; and the Rosita boys, I will say for 'em, is the worst I ever did see. Their fathers is away from hum all the time, and wimmen hain't much hold on boys after they get to be long from twelve an' up'ards; an' the schools in Rosita ain't no great things, either. 'S soon's I heard about them yokes, I told Luce the children couldn't never wear 'em: the boys 'n the street'd plague their lives out on 'em. I don't know as I blame 'em so much, either,--though they might be decent enough to let a little gal alone; but them yokes is awful cur'us-lookin' things. I never see a man a haulin' water with 'em, without laughin': they make a man look like a doubled-up kind o' critter, with more arms 'n he's any right to. You can't deny yourself, sir, thet they're queer-lookin'. Why, I've seen horses scare at 'em lots o' times."

Billy's conversation produced a strong impression on Mr. March's mind. Almost as reluctantly as Rob himself, he admitted that it was the part of wisdom to give up the yokes.

"It's no giving up for Nelly," said Mrs. March: "she said herself that nothing would induce her to wear it in again."

"And I think Rob would better not go in for a little while, till the boys have forgotten it," said Mrs. March.

"And not at all, unless he himself proposes it," added Mr. March. "I have never wholly liked the plan, much as we have been helped by the money."

"I've got an idee in my head," said Billy, "thet I think'll help 'em more 'n the yokes,--a sight more. I mean to make 'em a little light wagon. Don't tell 'em any thing about it, because it'll take me some little time yet. I've got to stay up to Pine's a week longer; an' I can't work on't there. But I'll have it ready in two weeks or three to the farthest."

"Thank you, Billy," said Mr. March: "that is very kind of you. And a wagon will be much better than the yokes were: it will save them fatigue almost as much, and not attract any attention at all. You were very good to think of it."

"Nothin' good about me," said Billy, gruffly: "never was. But I do think a heap o' your youngsters, specially Nelly, Mr. March. It seems to me the Lord don't often send just sech a gal's Nelly is."

"I think so too, Billy," replied Mr. March. "I have never seen a child like Nelly. I'm afraid sometimes we shall spoil her."

"No danger! no danger!" said Billy: "she ain't the kind that spoils."

"Now, you be sure an' not let on about the wagon: won't you, sir,"

he added, looking back over his shoulder, as he walked away fast on his great long legs, which looked almost like stilts, they were so long.

"Oh, yes! you may trust me, Billy," called Mr. March. "I won't tell.

Good-by!"

CHAPTER XI

HOW TO FIND A SILVER MINE