Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/35

 cause for uneasiness, and that that is the way boys generally conduct themselves when they go into a house. It saves them the trouble of hunting up their father and mother and telling them that they have got home without being run over by the cars, or knocked down by a runaway horse, or drowned in the lake.

The room into which Joe conducted his friend was like the private sanctum of every other boy who delights in the sports of the woods and fields, with this exception: It was in perfect order, and as neat as a new pin. Joe's mother wouldn't have it any other way, and neither would Joe. Indeed it was a favorite saying of his that if folks would keep away and let his things alone (by "folks" he meant to designate old Betty, the housekeeper, who, according to Joe's way of thinking, was "awful fussy"), he could find any thing he wanted, from a postage-stamp to a spoon-oar, on the darkest of nights, and without a lamp to aid him in the search.

The room looked a good deal like a museum I afterward saw, only it was on a much smaller scale, of course, and it contained so many