Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/84

74 It was Bert who came to the rescue.

“What a shame Fred couldn’t be here, Miss Bess! We fellows miss him awfully.”

“I’ll tell him you said so, Bert. He will be glad enough to know it, for he has such a dread of his old place getting filled, as time goes on.”

“Why didn’t he come?” asked Phil, turning his corn-ball from side to side, to see where to take the next bite.

“I knew it would be no use to ask him,” Bess replied. “I think you boys would be so good for him, but he dreads to see you.”

“I went there twice,” remarked Ted from his basket, “but the girl said he had told her not to let any one see him but you and Bob. He was such a jolly lad that I just want to see him again. Has he changed any. Miss Bessie?”

“Very little, Ted,” answered Bess. “Now, if you will get up long enough to let me have a stick for the fire, then I propose we have some games while you stay. What shall it be?”

Dumb crambo carried the day, and Bess, Ted, and Rob were chosen as actors. In the midst of an elaborate dental scene, where Rob extracted a tooth with the tongs, and filled