ony recovered enough to listen again.

Ted sent his cigarette stub careening off into the shrubbery and grinned
back at his uncle, a grin half merry, half defiant.

"Like fun, I can't!" he ejaculated. "I'm a union man, I am. I've done my
stunt for the day. If anybody thinks I'm going to stick my nose in
between the covers of a book before nine A.M. tomorrow he has a whole
orchard of brand new little thinks growing up to stub his toes on,
that's all."

"So the student life doesn't improve with intimate acquaintance?" The
doctor's voice was still teasing, but there was more than teasing behind
his questions. He was really interested in his nephew's psychology.

"Not a da--ahem--darling bit. If I had my way every book in existence
would be placed on a huge funeral pyre and conflagrated instantly.
Moreover, it would be a criminal offence punishable by the death sentence
for any person to bring another of the infernal nuisances into the world.
That is my private opinion publicly expressed." So saying Ted picked
himself up from the grass and sauntered off toward the house.

His uncle chuckled. He was sorry the boy did not take more cordially to
books, since it looked as if there were a good two years of them ahead at
the least. But he liked the honesty that would not pretend to anything
it did not feel, and he liked even better the spirit that had kept the
lad true to his pledge of honest work without a squirm or grumble through
all these weeks of grilling summer weather when sustained effort of any
sort, particularly mental effort, was undoubtedly a weariness and
abomination to flesh and soul, to his restless, volatile, ease-addicted,
liberty loving young ward. The boy had certainly shown more grit and
grace than he had credited him with possessing.

The village clock struck six. Tony sprang up from her blanket and began
to gather up her possessions.

"I never get over a scared, going-to-be-scolded feeling running down my
spine when the clock strikes and I'm not ready for supper," she said.
"Poor dear Granny! She certainly worked hard trying to make truly proper
persons out of us wild Arabs. It isn't her fault if she didn't succeed,
is it Larry?" She smiled at her brother--a smile that meant in Tony
language "I am sorry I was cross. Let's make up."

He smiled back in the same spirit. He rose taking the rug and magazines
from his sister's hand and walked with her toward the house.

Ruth sat up in her hammock and smoo