“It is!” declared Harold, wagging his head. “I guess he knew!”
Over the wires, after the children were asleep, went messages to school and home that banished anxiety, and then the Doctor and his wife talked long into the night. It had been a disturbing day.
At breakfast Harold announced his intention of remaining in Fair Harbor and going to school with Polly, but an early telegram from his father ended his happy planning. He scowled as he read the yellow slip.
“Return to school at once, and behave yourself.”
“Botheration!” he grumbled, “I s’pose I’ll have to! Pop always means what he says.”
Yet the lad enjoyed his breakfast, judging by the number of bananas and muffins that disappeared from his plate, until Polly, thinking of yesterday’s overheard talk, wondered what they should have done if her cousin had followed out his desire. Bananas cost; she was not so sure about muffins. In consequence of which she restricted her own appetite to the latter, and made her mother question if she were quite well, to pass by her favorite fruit.
Equipped with tickets for the journey and sufficient money to redeem his watch, besides a generous luncheon, Harold was put aboard the ten o’clock train. Notwithstanding his longing heart, he carried himself pluckily, consoled by Mrs. Dudley’s invitation to spend a week of his summer’s vacation in Fair Harbor. Yet she saw him suspiciously sweep his eyes with the back of his hand as the train whirled him off, and she sighed in sympathy, thinking, “Poor little fellow! he needs a mother!”