“Much I am!” and James Simmonds looked as if he did not appreciate being complimented, even by two merry girls. He was a tall, thin boy, with light, sandy hair, thin face and light eyes, but eyes that were keen with intelligence when they did not twinkle with mischief. “And I’m usually called ‘Simmonds’ by the men teachers.”
“So you are,” acknowledged Betty. “But I didn’t know they called you ‘Sim’–I thought it was ‘Jim.’”
“I’m generally known as Sim,” said the boy, “but sometimes it’s ‘Jim’, or ‘Carrotts.’”
Sim exchanged a look with Mary Emma, who giggled. “Sim’s my fourth or fifth cousin,” Mary Emma explained. “He lives at our house to go to school while his father and mother are away this year.”
As Betty looked inquiringly at Sim, he explained that his father was an engineer and was in South America with his mother for the year. “I’m going there some day,” said he. “Say, they have mosquitoes and snakes and all sorts of queer things, and there are some man-eaters down there, cannibals, you know–oh, it’s a wild country all right!”
“That doesn’t sound so very good to me,” smiled Betty. “Do you really want to go where there are snakes and things like that!”
“Certainly! Mary Emma you bring Betty Lee out some time and I’ll show her the things they’ve sent us.”
“We really have some beautiful things from South America, Betty,” said Mary Emma, and Betty was thinking how interesting it would be to see them. My, she was getting acquainted fast! But just as Mary Emma was beginning to tell her about a handsome purse that had come for her mother, Peggy came running out of the house door and stopped before the porch bench upon which the three were seated. Peggy was wearing something funny on her head and carried something, a straight piece of pasteboard, in her hand. Large black letters said something or other.
“Oh, here you are, Betty. I was looking for you. Carolyn wants you to be one of the social engineers. We’re going to have games for everybody on the lawn now and you’ll have to help. Come on! ’Scuse Betty, please, Mary Emma–and Sim.”
Betty rose to follow Peggy inside. There were several girls, all adjusting these pasteboard caps or hats, that looked like short stove-pipes. Carolyn was apologizing, though Betty thought the idea clever. “I didn’t have time, girls, to make caps, anything pretty, you know, and I went to a picnic where they had these. They looked cute and I thought they’d do.”