"I think, Johnnie," said Chips unsteadily, "that God wants us to go in the house."
A peal of thunder roared. "I've just thought," replied Johnnie, keeping his balance by clutching the younger boy as tightly as Chips was clinging to him, "that perhaps it wasn't right for us to run off the way we did, without getting any advice."
They strove with the wind only a few seconds more, then, with one accord, struggled to the door where one rang peal after peal at the bell, while the other pounded sturdily.
Johnnie didn't stop then to wonder how his father could get downstairs to open the door so quickly. Mrs. Ford, too, seemed to have been waiting for the pair of heroes, and she took them straight to Johnnie's room, where she undressed them in silence and rolled them into bed. They said their prayers and were asleep in two minutes, while the storm howled outside. Then, in some mysterious way, Mrs. Wood came into the room, and the three parents stood watching the unconscious children.
"That's the last of one trial with those boys, I'm sure," said Mr. Ford, laughing, and he was right; for it was years before any one heard either Johnnie or Chips mention Robinson Crusoe or his Man Friday.
CHAPTER XV
ST. VALENTINE
After that day when, on the lee side of the sand-dune the Evringham family read together the story of Johnnie and Chips, it was some time before the last tale in the story book was called for.