ll be scared as the rest of us; and if it is something pleasant,
why, let her have a share of that, too." Some day I'm going-to break
loose from myself and hug Mamie Sue's funny fatness until she squeals.

"I don't believe that if it was just a frolic the boys would have got
Douglass to come away from his work to the Crotch; but maybe he was
going up-town anyway, and they knew that," said Roxanne as I came in
the door and was given welcomes of different degrees. The tall Willis
is getting so that she moves over for me to sit down by her, even if
she is just sitting on one small chair. I wish she could know how that
pleases me.

"Did the boys look to you as if the thing that is making them all act
so important was nice or disagreeable, Phyllis?" asked Roxanne as she
got out the inevitable darning bag.

The short Willis moved nearer and began to help sort and get ready for
patching. I always keep a thimble in Roxanne's darning bag now, but
sometimes the short girl beats me to it. The others never notice that
Roxanne's hands are never empty of patching jobs. Still Mamie Sue does
attentively feed her fudge in hunks while she darns.

"I don't know boys well enough to diagram their expressions," I
answered. "They always look excited and queer to me, and I can't tell
their jokes from their other affairs. What have they been doing?"

"Being as hateful and secret as they know how to be," answered Belle
crossly. "Boys are nothing but rough, rude miseries; and the next time
Tony Luttrell tells me to 'bubble along' as he did Mamie Sue and me,
when Mamie Sue only wanted to stop him to give him a piece of fudge, I
am going to tell him what I think of him."

"Hope I'll be there," said the tall Willis behind my shoulder, and I
never enjoyed a silent remark more. Belle is as afraid of Tony's laugh
as she is of a cow in the lane.

"Now I know that something awful has happened or is coming if Tony
spoke that way," said Roxanne, with such anxiety coming into her face
that the timid Willis dropped her stocking and Mamie Sue gulped down
such a large piece of candy that she almost had to choke. "Oh, girls,
do you suppose that dreadful man has got out of jail in the city and
is coming back to maybe--maybe--?"

But the words were stopped in Roxanne's mouth with a great, pleasant
laugh as the Idol stood in the door. You would know that "Idol" is the
name for him by the way all the girls look awed and afraid of him, but
interested too. T