ll let you stay
until some woman who's going to take care of the kids most of the
summer gets here. Then she can do as she pleases about writing. You
better knuckle under, Billiard."

The older boy groaned. "You don't seem to care very much," he
complained bitterly, feeling that Toady had deserted him at the most
critical moment.

"I--I've apologized already," acknowledged the other. "I'd rather do
that than have Uncle Hogan get after us."

"So would I," Billiard sulkily decided, and pulling himself up from his
rocky seat, he slowly shambled down the mountainside, with Toady at his
heels hugely enjoying his brother's humiliation, for, though comrades
in mischief, the older boy loved to bully the younger, and Toady had a
long list of scores to settle, so he could not refrain from grinning
broadly behind Billiard's back, particularly since his part of the
disagreeable program had already been accomplished.

"Better wash your face, first," he suggested, as Billiard made straight
for the kitchen door, through which savory odors of supper cooking were
beginning to steal.

"Aw, come off!"

"She won't let you in till you do."

"Well, then, where's the water?"

Toady pointed toward a basin on a nearby rock, and Billiard made a
vigorous, if somewhat hasty toilet. Then, after a moment's further
hesitation, he entered the kitchen with hanging head, and, addressing a
grease spot on the floor by Tabitha's feet, muttered surlily,
"I--er--apologize."

Tabitha's lips twitched. He looked so utterly downcast and abject that
she could scarcely keep from smiling openly. "Are you ready to promise
to behave yourself from now on?"

"Yes, sir--I mean, ma'am," he gulped, flushing angrily as the girls
tittered.

Tabitha instantly silenced their mirth, and turning to the boy, said
graciously, "Then we'll let bygones be bygones; but we'll have no more
such actions while you stay. Your suitcase is in the back bedroom.
Toady will show you. But first, please bring in a couple armfuls of
wood. It looks like rain and----"

"Wood! We never bring in wood at home!" the boy rebelled.

"You are not at home now," Tabitha answered sweetly.

"But--we're paying board!"

"I haven't seen any board money yet. And anyway, we need the wood."

Angrily the boy jerked out a purse from his trousers pocket and slammed
some gold pieces on the table.

"Twenty dollars," she counted. "For how long?"

"All summer."

"Ten weeks! Two dol