“Why, Peter, how do you know?”
“A telegram came from him this morning. I was at the station when it came, and the operator read it off to me while it was coming, as he said it was to us. I’m going to learn telegraphy some day. It must be lots of fun to read all the messages and know what everybody is telegraphing about.”
He was searching in his pockets as he spoke.
“I must have left it down at the barn, but it was only to say he was coming on the two-twenty train. I’ll get it when I go down to give the rabbits their dinner.”
“I don’t think there ever was such a provoking boy as you!” exclaimed Honor, lying back upon the sofa, quite exhausted by her brief moment of activity in writing the telegram. “If you only could have told us this before!”
“You didn’t ask me, and you didn’t give me a chance, either,” responded Peter. “And now I wish you’d tell me something. What is all this fuss about, and what do you want Mr. Abbott for? What kind of a shindy has the war-horse been cutting up?”
“She says that you children are to go to boarding-school, and that Honor and I are to go live with her,” replied Katherine.
Peter gave a long, low whistle and stared at the fire.
“Are you going to?” asked he.
“Not if we can help it,” was the reply.