“You will stay with us, Nyoda?” pleaded Hinpoha, and Nyoda smilingly assured her that she and Sherry had already been invited to stay on and were going to accept because the business conference Sherry was to attend in Chicago had been postponed for a week. Judge Dalrymple also promised to stay until the twins went home.
“But who’ll be Chiefs that extra week?”
“Antha and Anthony,” said Katherine promptly. “They’ve both proven themselves responsible.”
And without waiting to go into formal meeting the family council approved the appointment, to the infinite amazement of the judge, who had never 250 looked upon the twins as anything but very small and irresponsible children. He listened unbelievingly to the tale of Antha and the camera.
“She’s got grit!” he exclaimed exultingly to Mr. Evans and Uncle Teddy. “She’s got grit! I thought she hadn’t a speck. She’s a Dalrymple after all! Praise be, she’s got grit!” He seemed more pleased about the fact that she had grit than if she had possessed all the virtues of the saints.
“She’s learned to swim, too! How did you ever do it? I knew it would be the making of her to send her here for the summer. And Anthony, too, you’ve done something to him. Why, he calls me ‘sir’ every time he speaks to me! He actually says ‘sir!’ That’s something he never did in his life before. And where he used to choose the worst boys he could find for companions he seems to have learned to pick the best out of the lot. He thinks there’s no one in the world like that St. John boy; wants me to give him our old yacht. Seems to have stopped bragging, too; that used to be his besetting sin.”
Uncle Teddy smiled reminiscently at this, and then, acting upon a sudden impulse, he told the judge how the boys had cured Anthony of boasting by forcing him to make good his words.
“So it took a lesson like that to do it?” said the judge. “Well, I guess you’re right. He ought to have had it long ago, only I’ve never had a chance to 251 do anything like that to him. His mother would have interfered. You know how it is.” He broke off with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I can’t thank you enough for taking care of them this summer,” he said earnestly.
Then Mr. Evans told him just how Katherine had influenced the Council to consent to the coming of the twins. “So it was Katherine that did it,” said the judge. “I am deeply in her debt. Do you happen to know of anything she would like to have particularly? I would like to show my appreciation in some way.”