Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/438

 ax, and she had it hid in the house. She broke open the Queen’s chest prying it with the ax.”

"Oh, boy!” said Jamie, “that’s rough! But don’t you feel bad. I’ll have it repaired so you will never know the difference if I have to have the whole front reproduced.”

“She busted the top around the lock and where the secret spring went,” said the little Scout. “The thing about it is that I don’t like things smashed and patched up. I like ’em when they’re whole and the way you got ’em give to you by one you love."

“Well, don’t you mind,” said Jamie. “There couldn’t have been anything new about that chest. I think it must have been about five hundred years old to begin with, and anyway, people can do things so wonderfully these days in such repair work. If it’s only around the lock, I’m sure we can get it fixed so nobody will ever know it.”

The little Scout used Jamie’s handkerchief on a pair of red eyes.

"All right, then,” the assent came with one of the youngster’s lightning changes. “All right, then. We’ll get it fixed, but we didn’t need a patched chest to remember her by. We got the whole garden for a souvenir of that lady!”

Suddenly the little Scout began to laugh.

“My! didn’t she look wonderful when the taxi man put her hat and coat on her? Wasn’t she a spiffy lady? I wonder, if Nannette had seen her, if she would have said she looked keen?”