“Oh, stop your grouching, you poor fish,” said Bobby. “In the first place the snow may not amount to anything. In the second place, if it does, we can get busy and sweep off enough of the ice on the lake to skate on. And in the third place, what we may miss in skating we can make up in coasting.”
“‘The fellow worth while is the one that can smile
When everything’s going dead wrong,’”
chanted Skeets. “I guess that means Bobby,” he added, giving the latter a nudge in the ribs.
“Well, what have we got to growl about anyway?” said Fred, falling into his chum’s mood. “Here we are well and strong and able to put away three square meals a day”—here Pee Wee pricked up his ears. “Now if we were shut up in a room like Lee Cartier, we might have something to kick about.”
“Poor Lee!” remarked Bobby regretfully. “He’s certainly had a rough deal. He’s lucky of course that he didn’t get pneumonia. But it’s no joke to be kept in his room so long. I’m going over to see him for a while as soon as supper is over.”
Which he did, accompanied by Fred and Sparrow, who had expressed a desire to go along.
CHAPTER VI
FIRE!
The other schoolboys found Lee in the private room that had been set apart for him, propped up with pillows in a big easy chair and wrapped snugly in a bathrobe. His face was pale from his illness, but it lighted up when he saw his visitors.
“I was just wishing you fellows would drop in,” he said, as they shook hands with him and pulled their chairs up close.
“It must get awful poky cooped up in the room so long,” said Bobby sympathetically.