“I’m glad you got it, son.” Mrs. Martin spoke before Tim could say a word.
“Just like that kid, to tell everything before any one else gets a chance.”
He was really cross. That’s the way he was most of the time, these days. They had been good chums until his senior year in High School, when he had assumed such superior airs. He had acted especially high and mighty since his graduation last week. As far as Joan could find out, he had nothing against her except her age. Could she help it that she was nearly four years the younger? She was almost as tall as Amy Powell, her best friend, and Amy was fifteen years old. He was usually nice to Amy, too, but then Amy had a grown-up way around the boys.
Only at times did he seem the same old brother. To think that only a year ago they had been such chums, even to having a secret code between them. When she was small, it had amused her to learn that Tim’s real name, Timothy, was also the name of a grain. “Oats and beans and barley,” she used to sing the old song at him, and somehow or other in their play that phrase came to mean, “Danger. Look out.” It had been convenient lots of times in their games, Hie Spy and Run Sheep Run. But they hadn’t used it for a long time now.
“Tim, I just couldn’t help telling. I was so excited.” She tried to make her dark eyes sober and her voice sorry sounding, now.
“She’s the limit.” Tim turned to his mother. “Reads what I’m writing over my shoulder and breathes down my neck till I’m nearly crazy.”
He, like Mother, refused to believe she was in earnest about being a reporter.
“You ought to be glad I do snoop around,” Joan told him, as she wiped off the table for Mother. “You know Edna Ferber’s Dawn O’Hara was rescued from the wastebasket by her sister, so you see! When do you start in?”
“To-morrow.” Tim drew up his shoulders, proudly. “Uncle John says they really need a cub reporter since they put Mack on Sports. That’s the place I’d really like! But—they need a cub, and I’m it. Decent enough salary, too, Mother; I’ll be able to pay you some board, besides saving for the University.”
Mother smiled. “That’s fine!”