She lifted him on to her lap, and he bent eagerly over the slate on his knees.
"Now, what do you want to write," Betty asked, taking his right hand in her own firm, strong one.
"A letter—a letter to father. He's going to write to me every week. How do you begin? He says I must write every week, same as he does."
"All right! 'My dear Father'—That's the way to begin."
By the time the "r" was reached Jack lifted a flushed face.
"It's awful hard work; I'll never do it."
"Oh, yes we will. We'll write it to-morrow in your copybook. Very soon it will come quite easy."
And the wish to conquer made Jack comparatively patient at his writing the following morning. Lessons over, he turned out into the paddock as usual to play, but somehow all zest for play had deserted him. The effort to prove himself a man the day before had a reaction. Every game, played alone, lost its flavour. Hitherto Jack had never been conscious of the need of a playmate. His whole being had been so absorbed in his father that the looking forward to his visits, the saving up everything to show him and to tell him, had satisfied him; but to-day, with that father gone, he floated about like a rudderless boat, fretful and lonely, not able to voice his vague longing for something to happen! He opened the gate and looked down the lane. On the opposite side of the lane was a tenantless house; the half-acre in which it stood had never been brought into proper cultivation as a garden, but the flowers and shrubs which had been planted haphazard about it had grown now into tangled confusion, and Jack, when tired of his own premises, had often run down there, where, crawling on all-fours through the long grass and shrubs, he had imagined himself lost in the bush, and great was his joy when Aunt Betty, not finding him in the home paddock, would come wandering down the lane, saying in a clear, distinct tone:
"Now where can that little boy have gone? I'm afraid, I'm dreadfully afraid, he's lost in the bush! I wonder if it's possible he can have strayed in here."
Then her bright head would be thrust over the gate, and each time Jack was discovered cowering from sight there would be a fresh burst of rapture on the part of the much-distressed aunt and roars of delighted laughter from Jack. It was a most favourite game, but he did not wish to play it to-day.