Page:The Boys of Bellwood School.djvu/76

64 "But he won't be agreeable; that's the trouble, you see," declared the farmer. "When he gets in one of them tantrums of his, you simply can't reason with him."

"Well, I'll take charge of him, if you don't wish to make the long journey, Mr. Upton."

"I'll never know how to thank you, if you will," said the farmer gratefully. "Hi, there, Robert."

"Me?" droned the boy in the seat across the aisle.

"Who else do you suppose?" snapped his stepfather testily. "Come, rout out there, or I'll unhitch a strap somewhere and make you step lively."

Frank made up his mind that he would interest himself in the drifting waif of a fellow. As he thought of the big, husky farmer and his houseful of grown sons and daughters, he wondered if in their rough, unthinking way they had not quite broken the spirit of the motherless lad in their midst.

"Sit down here," ordered the farmer, turning the seat so it faced Frank. "This boy is going to Bellwood, Robert. He's agreed to take you along with him, and I'm going back home."

Robert shot a glance of dislike and suspicion at Frank, as if he was a link in a chain of jailers waking for him along the line of life.

"You behave yourself along with him down at