him a paper lady was coming
and then I went back to the woods. He went down with me to see the
boys, and he said he would come back and have lunch with us. Mother
doesn't ever stop to eat at noon when she is writing.

"He went back and talked to the paper lady and pretty soon he came
down and ate with us. I told him all about how we couldn't get any
girl to do the work for us and so we had been living with you, and how
Di got sick and mudder was all worn out taking care of him and came
down here to rest, and that you wouldn't cash the check, so I did and
was spending it and he said that was all right." Here Ptolemy flashed
me a most triumphant glance.

"He said you must be paid for all your expense and trouble, so he made
out a check and gave it to me and told me to make mudder a nice
present. He ain't so bad when he ain't thinking about dead stuff. When
he felt in his pocket for his check book, he found a letter he had got
yesterday and forgotten to open, so he read it then and found it was
from some magazine, and the man said he'd pay his and mother's
expenses to go to Chili and write up some stuff about--something. So
father said they must go at once."

"Not to Chili!" I exclaimed.

"Yes; we all went up to the house with him and I took mother's pencil
and paper away so she would have to listen. She was wild for Chili,
and I had to go and hunt up a farmer who had a machine to take them
down to Windy Creek. Father signed another blank check for you and
said you could board us with it or do anything you thought best.

"Then mother took a lot of papers out of her bag, some stuff she had
written and didn't get suited with, and she stuffed them in the stove
and set fire to them. Then we all went down to the lane to see father
and mother off and when we got back the house was on fire. The chimney
burned out."

"Guess mother must have written some hot stuff," said Emerald.

"It was burning so fast," continued Ptolemy, "that we didn't dast go
in to save anything and all our food and clothes and balls and bats
and fishing tackle are gone, and we didn't know what to do, or what to
eat, and so--we came here."

"You did just right, Ptolemy," I admitted. "I shouldn't have called
you down--not until I heard your story, anyway."

I held out my hand, which he shook solemnly, but with an injured air.

"Do you mean to tell me," asked Miss Frayne, "that your father and
mother went away without seeing the baby?"

Ptolemy f