They had to take Mr. and Mrs. Belding into their confidence at the supper table, for they had to get permission to use the car that evening. Mrs. Belding was somewhat doubtful of Laura’s scheme, and called it “an escapade.” But her father was always an easy captive to his oldest daughter’s whimsies, and he cheered her idea enthusiastically.
“And besides,” said Chet, slily, “Laura is trying to rope in the old Colonel and make him cough up for the girls’ athletic field. I know her!”
“Chetwood!” ejaculated his mother. “Is it proper to speak of your sister as a ‘roper in’—as though she were a female cowboy? And why should the Colonel contract a bronchial affection for the sake of the girls’ athletics?”
The family assembled had to laugh at this; but Chet was somewhat abashed, too.
“Don’t be so hard on a fellow, Mother,” he begged. “I can’t remember to shift languages when I come into your presence—it is just impossible. To talk Americanese outside the house and stilted English within—well, it’s just impossible. I’m sure to get my wires crossed—there I go again!”
“I really do not see why you send this boy to high school, James,” sighed Mrs. Belding. “It seems to be a waste of time. ‘Stilted English,’ indeed!”
But Mr. Belding was inclined to laugh at her. And he was very much interested in Laura’s plan for helping Mrs. Kerrick get a good night’s sleep.
“I think,” said the father, “that the principal trouble with Mabel Kerrick—and always has been—is she has never had any real object in life worth living for. If Fred Kerrick had been a different sort of a man while he lived—or if he had lived more than three months after they were married—Mabel might have amounted to something.”
“But she really is ill, Father,” said Laura.
“So she is ill—now. But it is nothing, I believe, that a vital interest in life wouldn’t cure. The Colonel has ‘babied’ her all her life. When she was a girl she could dance all night, and sleep most of the day, and never took any healthful exercise. And now she is one of these nervous women whom every little thing fusses. She leads the old Colonel a pretty dance, I guess.”