"Lem and Dolly Owen, sir; as bad a pair, and the children of as bad a father as one could find on a long summer day. Poor neglected creatures, they are to be pitied too; but it is useless to try to do anything for them, for all help is worse than thrown away. They live in a little tumble-down shanty back of the rocks at the lower end of the lake, and a terrible nuisance they are to me and every one in the neighborhood. The father is a drunkard of the worst sort, the mother long since dead, and these two children, liars, vagabonds and thieves, up to every sort of wicked mischief, and a terror to all the children in Chalecoo. They live as they can, by robbing orchards, hen-roosts, dairies and cornfields during the summer; picking up odd bits, and stealing whatever they can lay their fingers on in the winter, half starved and half frozen the most of the time."