"Ah, he was a nice little chap; quick and handy, too," said Jack's father, who remembered him helping to build the rabbit hutch.
"I've found out to-day, dad, that Fairfield ain't so far off," said Jack, a little eagerly.
"Not so far! Why, it's close on twenty miles by the railway."
"Yes, because the line goes such a round-about way; but by road it ain't more than ten or eleven miles."
"Ten or eleven miles are more than a good walk, my lad."
"Yes, I know; but I'm learning to ride a bicycle," said Jack.
"What!" exclaimed father and mother in a breath.
"It's true enough," said Jack, laughing. "My foreman comes to work on a jigger, and he let me try it to-day, for he said I might find it handy."
"Well," said his father, "what then?"
"Why, I think he might lend it to me now and then to go and see Tom Winn, and I might get a hint or two from him how to begin the figuring out things."