“It keeps three months,” replied Jerry.

“I should like that first-rate—­I wish I lived here,” said Oscar; “I have to go to school all the time.  But why does n’t your school keep more than three months?”

“I don’t know,” replied Jerry; “I guess it’s because folks are too stingy to pay for it.  They ’ve been talking of having a summer school, but I don’t believe it will amount to anything.”

“I should hope it would n’t if I lived here,” said Oscar.  “What capital times you must have!—­no school to bother you, and no lessons to get.  But I suppose you have to work some—­don’t you?”

“No, not much,” said Jerry; “I help a little in planting and haying time, and have a few chores to do about the house,—­that’s all.”

“Do you have many boys to play with?” inquired Oscar.

“There are boys enough,” replied his cousin, “but they are scattered all over town,—­that’s the worst of it.  There is only one fellow of my age that lives near here, and he’s half a mile off.”

“If you call that near, I should like to know what you call distant,” said Oscar.  “I ’m afraid I should be lonesome if I lived here.”

“Halloo, it rains!” said Jerry, as the big drops began to sound upon the roof over their heads.

“Then I ’m going in,” added Oscar, and they both started for the house.

It proved to be a rainy day, and Oscar was obliged to find his amusement in-doors through its remaining hours.  With his four cousins to help him, this was not a very difficult matter.  When he retired at night, he felt quite at home in his new quarters.

The sun rose clearly the next morning, and everything looked the more beautiful for the rain.  To Oscar, the fields not only seemed greener, but the hills looked higher, and the trees more majestic, than they did the day before.

“Why,” he exclaimed, as he stood before the chamber window, “there is a pond away off there, is n’t there?  I did n’t know that before.”

“Yes, that’s a pond,” replied Jerry, “and we ’ve got a small river, too, but you can’t see it from here.  We ’ll go over to the pond, some warm day, and go into water; it’s a real good place to bathe.”

“Perhaps we ’ll go to-day,” said Oscar; “it looks as though it were going to be real warm.”

Mrs. Preston now called to the boys that breakfast was ready, and they hurriedly finished dressing themselves, and descended to the kitchen.  Having washed his face at the sink, Oscar stepped to the door, and used his pocket-comb; but Jerry was in too great a hurry to go through this last operation, and he was about taking his seat at the table, with his hair standing up in every direction, when his father inquired: 

“Jerry, what have you been doing to your head?”

“Nothing,” replied Jerry, with a look of surprise.

“Well, I think you had better do something to it, before you come here,” said his father.  “Oscar will think you were brought up among the wild Arabs, if you come to the table with such a mop of hair as that about your head.  Don’t you see how nicely he has smoothed his hair?”