Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/147

Rh "I wonder where he'd have been sleeping to-night if I hadn't come along just about when I did?" mused Ken. "The innocent little youngster—he never supposed for a minute that the rapscallion would do anything but take him home. How's he ever going to learn all the ways of the wicked world? And what ever possessed him to shoot off the Toad Pome to the Maestro?"

Ken put the candle on the bureau and undid his necktie.

"The blessed little goose!" he added affectionately.

There is nothing like interesting work to make time pass incredibly quickly. For the Sturgises were interested in all their labors, even the "chores" of Applegate Farm. It goes without saying that Kirk's music—which was the hardest sort of work—absorbed him completely; he lived in a new world. So, almost before they could believe it, September came, filling the distance with tranquil haze, and mellowing the flats to dim orange, threaded with the keen blue inlets of the bay. Asters began to open lavender stars at the door-stone of