“That is true,” agreed the lawyer. “But what am I to do? Separate them? Send them to boarding school—the boy one way and the girl another?”
“Gee! that would be tough, Mr. Howbridge,” declared Neale O’Neil, with considerable feeling for the unfortunate twins.
“I don’t see what I’m to do,” complained the lawyer.
“They should have a real home,” Ruth stated, with some severity. “Sending them to boarding school is dodging the issue. So is leaving them wholly in the care of servants.”
“Who would take in two tearing and wearing children, twelve years old?” demanded Mr. Howbridge, on the defensive.
“Perhaps the fault does go back to the parents—to the father, at least,” admitted Ruth. “He should have made provision for his children before he died.”
“I suppose you think the duty devolves upon me,” said Mr. Howbridge, rather grumpily. “Should I take them into my house? Should I break up the habits of years for two half-wild children?”
“Oh, I don’t know that,” Ruth told him brightly. “It’s one of those things one must decide for oneself, isn’t it?”
There was not much more said after that during the ride about the twins, Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. But Red Deer Lodge!
The idea of going to a real camp in winter was taken up by everybody in the party, for even Tom Jonah barked. In the depths of the wilderness, with wild woods, and wild animals, and perhaps wild men! (this in Sammy’s mind) all about the Lodge! The freckled boy considered the idea even superior to his long cherished desire to run away to be a pirate.