Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/60

50 turned away with a serious look on his jolly, freckled face. “Just think of the way he used to skate, and play baseball and hare and hounds! It must be awful for him. But isn’t it funny he won’t let us go to see him?”

“I don’t know,” replied Rob, meditatively patting a snowball into shape; “I guess if I  were like what Fred is, I shouldn’t want the  boys round, for ’twould just make me think all  the time of the things I couldn’t do. Cousin Bess is awfully good to him; she’s down here  ever so much.”

“I know it. Wonder if anything happened to me, she’d take me up,” said Phil, half enviously. “I just wish she was my cousin, Bob. Why, she’s as good as a boy, any day!”

In the meantime, Fred’s first care had been to draw down the curtains on his side of the  carriage, and then he shrank into the corner, answering as briefly as possible to Bessie’s careful suggestions for his comfort. But her endless good-humor and fun were never to be  long resisted, and he was soon talking away as  rapidly as ever, while the change and the  motion and the cool crisp air brought a glow to