Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/183

Rh good-bye, and Dick murmured something that might be taken as an expression of a fervent desire to pay another visit to The Firs, but it was not.

"Dad," said Dick that night, "do you know what I'm thinking of?"

"Not exactly, you think of so many things."

"I'm thinking of those poor httle fresh-air kids, and how disappointed they must be not to get a trip to the country. I don't know as I want them to go to Uncle Ezra's, but—er—say, dad, I'd like to give a bunch of fresh-air kids some sort of an outing. Think of the poor little tots shut up in sizzling New York this kind of weather."

"Well, you can bring them here, I suppose," began Mr. Hamilton, doubtfully, with a look around his handsomely furnished house, "only this isn't exactly the country."

"Oh, I didn't mean here," said Dick, hastily. "I was thinking we could have a crowd of 'em out to Sunnyside."

This was the name of a large farm which Mr. Hamilton owned on the outskirts of the country village of Prattville.

"The very thing!" exclaimed Mr. Hamilton, with as much fervor as Dick had shown. "That's the ticket, Dick. I'll write to Foster at once and ask him if he and his wife can take a crowd of the waifs at Sunnyside for a few weeks. Then you will have to manage the other end yourself.