Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/69

 Phyllis says sharply. Mr. Martin, who looks puzzled, takes his elbows off too.

There's a poor old tumbledown farm, on a sandy cliff, among dark pine trees, Phyllis explains. Someone has told the children that it's haunted. The word means nothing to them, but they can tell—by the way people say it—that it suggests something interesting.

Yes, if it doesn't rain, George says. He is too experienced a parent ever to make positive promises.

This would have been a good day for cold meat and salad, he thinks, sawing away at the joggling-slippery roast. Phyllis sees him thinking it. "I'm sorry to have hot meat on such a warm day, but we'll need it to-morrow for the sandwiches. There's some iced tea coming."

"Hot meat to make your inside hot, iced tea to make it cold," the children exclaim. "Do we have to eat the fat?"

They always ask this question. Then Mr. Martin asks it too, which causes amusement. How delightful Mr. Martin is, Phyllis thinks. He has a sort of eagerness to be happy, to enjoy things, to move blithely from one minute to the next. Even George feels it, he looks less cross. But George, as he takes down a tall glass of iced