“Try saying ‘boo!’ back sometime,” he advised in a quieter tone than he had used to any of the other girls, “and see what happens. If the person you say it to doesn’t run, stand your ground and say it again, louder. But be careful,” he patted Grace on the shoulder, “and don’t scare yourself with your own voice.”
At this everyone laughed, including Grace, and Alice MacKenzie took her father by the arm and started toward the station. “If you don’t look out, father,” she warned, “I’ll say ‘boo!’ to you and then you’ll jump.”
“Oh, go along with you,” Adair MacKenzie pounded his cane on the wooden platform, and then shook it at his daughter, “If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll give you one last spanking that will hold you until you are as old and gray as I am.”
For answer, Alice laughed provocatively up into his face.
“Now, come on, you girls,” Adair frowned as best he could under the circumstances, “we’ve got to get along. And you too, you get a move on,” he pointed his cane, with this, at a tall, lanky blond young man.
At this, Nan and Bess, Rhoda and Grace, Laura and Amelia with one accord turned their eyes on Walker Jamieson.
“It’s real, girls.” Walker grinned down into their faces. “It moves and speaks, eats and sleeps just like the rest of the world. It does everything but work.” So saying, he winked quite openly at Alice and lengthened his steps so that he walked beside her father.
“First truth I’ve ever heard you utter,” Adair MacKenzie tried to sound brusk, but didn’t succeed very well. The truth was, of course, that he was intensely pleased with the prospect of spending his summer with this crowd of young people. And, though he would be the last person in the world to admit it, he was intensely flattered that this brilliant young newspaper man was in the party. “Not that he came,” he thought to himself as he noted, with some satisfaction, the regard with which Walker seemed to hold Alice, “to keep me company.” He sighed deeply as he finished the thought. Alice was his only child.
“Got everything?” Adair MacKenzie repeated the question with which he greeted the girls as they all approached the customs office. “Baggage checks? Tourist cards?”
At this, they all opened their purses and rummaged around in them.