“But I’m not going to the dance,” went on Ruth. “I don’t want to leave the other girls. And, anyway, the girls are all getting ready, as you know, to visit my home. But I think it was very nice of Joe Sedley to ask me to go,” she added.
How far this conversation might have extended there is no telling, because at that moment several of the others came up with the announcement that it was time to return to Valley Brook Farm for lunch, and after the repast Ruth went off with the other girls to complete the arrangements for going home and taking her former school chums with her.
But the conversation made Jack more thoughtful than ever. He wondered if Ruth had not been drawing him out on purpose and wondered also if she would have been better pleased had he announced his intention of taking up some profession.
“Maybe now that her family is well fixed she would like to shine socially,” he told himself. “Well, lots of people like that, so I couldn’t blame her. But I’m afraid I’d make a poor showing trailing the élite four hundred. And then, what did she mean about traveling out West and down South? Maybe she would prefer somebody who stuck at home. But I couldn’t do that—not all the time. It’s not in my nature.”
But Jack was not left to meditate long. Gif and Spouter claimed his attention and reminded both him and the other boys that they had been promised an outing in the woods back of the farm if they came there for a vacation.
“Both of us are a bit tired of running the car,” explained Spouter. “We’d like to get into the wide-open spaces, as they call it, and rough it a bit as we used to on Snowshoe Island and on our big hunt.”
“We’ll start out on a little trip just as soon as the girls leave,” said Randy.
“Provided Fred can break away from May,” put in his twin slyly.
“May has certainly got him hypnotized,” laughed Jack.
“Humph! What about Ruth having you under her thumb?” retorted the youngest Rover, and then he added quickly: “But you had better watch your step, Jack, or Joe Sedley will be walking off with the prize.”