We\'ve been staying at the sea-shore for a week, and having a beautiful time. I love the sea-shore, only it would be a great deal nicer if there wasn\'t any sea; then you wouldn\'t have to go in bathing. I don\'t like to go in bathing, for you get so awfully wet, and the water chokes you. Then there are ticks on the sea-shore in the grass. A tick is an insect that begins and bites you, and never stops till you\'re all ettup, and then you die, and the tick keeps on growing bigger all the time.

There was once a boy and a tick got on him and bit him, and kept on biting for three or four days, and it ettup the boy till the tick was almost as big as the boy had been, and the boy wasn\'t any bigger than a marble, and he died, and his folks felt dreadfully about it. I never saw a tick, but I know that there are lots of them on the sea-shore, and that\'s reason enough not to like it.

We stayed at a boarding-house while we were at the sea-shore. A boarding-house is a place where they give you pure country air and a few vegetables and a little meat,[Pg 191] and I say give me a jail where they feed you if they do keep you shut up in the dark. There were a good many people in our boarding-house, and I slept up-stairs on the third story with three other boys, and there were two more boys on the second story, and that\'s the way all the trouble happened.

There is nothing that is better fun than a pillow fight; that is, when you\'re home and have got your own pillows, and know they\'re not loaded, as Mr. Travers says. He was real good about it, too, and I sha\'n\'t forget it, for \'most any man would have been awfully mad, but he just made as if he didn\'t care, only Sue went on about it as if I was the worst boy that ever lived.

You see, we four boys on the third story thought it would be fun to have a pillow fight with the two boys on the second story. We waited till everybody had gone to bed, and then we took our pillows and went out into the hall just as quiet as could be, only Charley Thompson he fell over a trunk in the hall and made a tremendous noise. One of the boarders opened his door and said who\'s there, but we didn\'t answer, and presently he said "I suppose it\'s that cat people ought to be ashamed of themselves to keep such animals," and shut his door again.

After a little while Charley was able to walk, though his legs were dreadfully rough where he\'d scraped them[Pg 192] against the trunk. So we crept down-stairs and went into the boys\' room, and began to pound them with the pillows.

They knew what was the matter,............