“Oh!” “A-ah!” “How stupid I was not to see!” “‘The farmer needs it for his growing corn!’” cried the Master, drawing up his foot and facetiously rubbing his toes. “Even a farmer may raise two kinds of corn,” suggested he and thus solved one line over which Jane Potter was still puzzling.
Thereupon, Monty sprang up and snapped his fingers, schoolroom fashion:
“Master, Master! Me next! Me! I know one good as his and not near so long! My turn, please!”
They all laughed. Laughter came easily now, provoked even by silliness, and again a thankful, happy feeling rose in the young hostess’s heart that her House Party was to be so delightful to everybody. Helena Montaigne now sat resting shoulder to shoulder with proud Alfaretta upon a little divan of straw whose back was a row of grain sheaves; Mabel was radiant amid a trio of admiring lads—Monty, Mike Martin, and Danny Smith; Herbert was eagerly discussing camp-life with shy Melvin, who had warmed to enthusiasm over his Nova Scotian forests; and all the different elements of that young assembly were proving most harmonious, as even smaller parties, arranged by old hostesses, do not always prove.
“All right, Master Montmorency. Make it easy, please. A diversion not a brain tax,” answered Seth.
“‘If Rider Haggard had been Lew Wallace, what would ‘She’ have been?’”
“‘Ben Hur’!” promptly shouted Frazer, before another had a chance to speak, and Monty sank back with a well-feigned groan. “I read that in the Almanac, too. I’ve read ‘Ben Hur,’ it’s in our school lib’ry, but not ‘She,’ though Pa told me that was another book, wrote by the other feller.”
“I’ll never try again; I never do try to distinguish myself but I make a failure of it!” wailed Monty, jestingly.
“But Herbert hasn’t failed, nor Melvin. Let’s have at least one more wit-sharpener,” coaxed Dorothy.
But Herbert declined, though courteously enough.