Bob’s head was full of plans for his education, and in the days that followed he often spoke of his future. Mr. Gordon listened and advised him frequently, and Bob grew fonder of him all the time.
Clover was brought back from the Flame City stable where Betty had left her, and they resumed their riding, Mr. Gordon hiring a horse and often accompanying them.
“You know, the aunts have never seen the oil fields,” said Betty one day, as they were slowly riding home from the fields where they had seen the largest new well in operation for the first time. “Don’t you think they would be interested, especially as their own farm will be an oil field next year?”
“We’ll take them on a sightseeing trip,” promised Mr. Gordon instantly. “If I can get a comfortable car, I’ll come for you all to-morrow morning. They’ll enjoy having dinner at the bunk house, and we’ll show them the workings of the whole place. Imagine a person who has lived in this oil country and hasn’t seen a well!”
The program was carried out, and the Misses Saunders thoroughly enjoyed the long day spent among the wells. They thought the machinery wonderful, as indeed it was, and marveled at the miles of pipe line.
Grandma Watterby, as might be expected, was delighted with the turn of events, and Betty and Bob spent a day with her, telling her all that had happened.
“It’s better than a book,” she sighed contentedly. “If Emma would only go around more, I’m sure she could find interesting things to tell me. ’Fore I was crippled with rheumatism, I used to know all that was goin’ on.”
The Watterbys had bought a car, and Bob was eager for his aunts to have one. They preferred to wait until it was decided where they were to spend the winter, and in this Mr. Gordon concurred. He had been made, at the request of the two old ladies and backed by the old country lawyer who had known their father, the guardian of Bob, who would not inherit his share of the ninety thousand dollars, of course, until he was twenty-one. Bob himself was very much pleased to be a ward of Betty’s uncle, feeling that now he “really belonged,” as he happily said.
“Who do you suppose this is from?” asked Betty, waving a letter at Bob one morning not long after their visit to the oil fields with the aunts. “You’ll never guess!”
Bob looked up from his book. He was luxuriously stretched under a tree, reading.