"Love!" Granny repeated the word. "That may be, Joe. Love does strange things. Maybe it can change Tessie. Understand, I don't blame Tessie, Joe. The poor little thing never had anything in all her life until now. No wonder her head is turned. But maybe love can turn it right again."
"It can!" insisted Joe. "Love is the strongest force in the world, you know, Granny. It is nothing for love to straighten a pretty girl's head. It's this queen business that bothers me, Granny. This fool queen business! What do you think about it, anyway?"
Granny snorted contemptuously. "I'm beginning to think that my son Pete died as big a rascal as he lived." Granny did not mince words when she told Joe what she thought. "And that's saying a good deal. I don't like these Sunshine Islands, Joe, and if I have my way, we won't stir a step toward them. I'm afraid of the savages, but I'm not telling Tessie that. Every girl dreams some day she'll be a queen and now that my girl really is a queen, I'm not the one who'll tell her she was better off when she was selling aluminum in the Evergreen."
Joe squared his shoulders as if he put a burden on them.
"Well, I will," he said stoutly. "I don't believe in deceiving people even for their own good."
Granny looked at him admiringly, but there was something more than admiration in her faded eyes. Was it pity? "You always were a brave boy, Joe Cary," she said. "And you're young enough to believe in yourself. But girls are different from anything you've met yet. You've got to handle them different. But what's the use of an old woman like me talking to you? You'll have to find out things for yourself."
"Yes," agreed Joe proudly. "I'm the kind that has to find things out for himself."
"Stay and have dinner with me?" asked Granny with cordial hospitality. "Now that Tessie's gone to Kingley's and Johnny's at that Boy Scout camp I'll be all alone if you don't stay."
"Where's Norah Lee?" Joe questioned carelessly, but he flushed a bit.
"We can ask Norah, too," Granny told him quickly. "She don't often stay for dinner. She's a great help to Tessie, Joe, but Tessie pays her good wages so I suppose Tessie is a help to her, too."