ed around, and
all of a sudden I sees Ma coming along, and I'm just going to speak to
her when along comes Pa. He lets on he's just coming that way on
accounter business, but his face gets a kinder red, and Ma laughs a
glad little laugh. And when I told 'em about Pete being kept in, they
both looks awful solemn and plunks down on the steps to wait for him.
Pa, he takes one'r Ma's hands and tells her to cheer up, and Ma says
she can't, she feels gloomy, and the house was awful lonesome with both
the boys away. So, just when I think there's going to be a crying
match, out comes Pete with his face a shining. Ma grabbed him and
kissed him like she'd never stop, and Pa hoists him on his shoulder,
and the procesh starts for home.

"Well, both Ma and Pa were for Pete staying home that afternoon, but
not for Pete. He was crazy for school. He told 'em what he'd done,
and Pa laughs and Ma tells him he'd orter be ashamed to laugh at his
boy fightin' the first day he's at school. But Pa laughs some more and
says, 'It ain't a bad sign,' he says; 'they gotter fight some time or
other, and there's nothing like starting early,' he says.

"So Pete and me goes off to school in the afternoon, and Pa says to Ma,
'Keep a stiff upper lip, Ma, the boys are all right,' he says, and I
guess Pa knows.

"There's quite a bunch in our family now, and some of 'em ain't old
enough for school yet, and I s'pose Ma 'll feel gloomy about 'em when
they start, same as she did about Pete."

He rose, put on his cap, and informed Lucien that he was going to look
at the bulletin boards to see how the baseball team was doing. "I hope
they'll lose," he added.

"Why?" Lucien demanded.

"Well, they've lost three games in a row now to the tail enders, and if
they lose this one it'll make me gloomier'n ever, and maybe I'll be so
gloomy there'll be no sense in it, and I'll begin to cheer up."

CHAPTER X

It was Miss Whimple who heard the first detailed account of William's
experiences as a rent collector, and she heard it from William's own
lips. She sent a note to the office one day, asking Whimple to send
the lad up, ostensibly with some papers, "but in reality," she added,
"because I want him to take luncheon with me; I want to ask him about
some things."

"And if she wants to ask him she'll ask him, all right," Whimple mused
to himself, "and William 'll have to answer, for Aunt is a remarkably
bright woman, and a remarkably direct woman