Both girls clapped their hands, and scampered about the porch eagerly. At last Shirley stopped her antics, and standing directly before her father, took him by the coat with both hands.
“Do you mean it, Dad?” she asked.
Mr. Willing nodded.
“Yes. Ashton and I have decided that the next time you two youngsters go away from home we are going with you. When you are by yourselves you get into too much mischief. Now where is it you want to go?”
“We haven’t the slightest idea,” was the reply.
Mr. Willing turned to Mabel.
“You call your father out here and we’ll talk this thing over,” he told her.
Mabel hastened to obey, and while she is searching for her father, we shall take time to introduce Shirley Willing and Mabel Ashton more fully to the reader.
The two girls had been friends ever since they could remember. Born and raised within a few doors of each other in the little town of Paris, Bourbon county, Kentucky, they had been inseparable companions from the time they were able to walk. This friendship was strengthened by the fact that their fathers had been bosom friends before them.
While the girls were still young, Shirley’s mother died, and a short time later Mr. Willing purchased a large farm on the Bethlehem Pike, three miles from town. It was less than a year later that Mabel’s mother passed into the great Beyond, and Mr. Ashton bought a farm adjoining that of his old friend. And here they had lived ever since.