“Just hand me that volume on the second shelf to your right by the door. Second volume, Explorations in Upper Egypt, look up Seti the First in the index.”
Kit found the place and laid it before him, perching herself on one end of the desk, as she always did when she wanted to attract his attention. The little statuette of Annui smiled grotesquely down upon her from its pedestal. The urn stood in a handy place of honor upon the desk itself as the Dean had been deciphering the inscriptions upon it.
“I hate to disturb you, Uncle Bart,” Kit began, with the directness so characteristic of her, “but I really think I ought to go back home. You’ve been wonderful to give me such a long visit, and I’ve enjoyed the school work immensely, but somehow I begin to feel like a soldier who has been away on a furlough. It’s time for me to get back, because Mother needs me.”
The Dean glanced up in surprise; and came slowly out of his dream of concentration as the meaning of her words dawned upon him.
“Why, my dear child,” he exclaimed, “this is very sudden. There has never been any question about your going back, at least—” He coughed. “Not since we became acquainted with you. Has anything happened?”
“Why, nothing special—I mean, nothing tragic. It’s only this, Dad’s lost a lot of money all at once. He did have a little income, enough so we never have had to depend on the farm entirely, but now, even that has been swept away.”
“Tom never had any head for business.” The Dean tapped one hand lightly with his glasses in an absent-minded musing way that nearly drove Kit frantic. “But what can you do about it, my dear? Surely by returning at such a time you merely add to your father’s burdens.”
“No, I won’t,” Kit answered. “Because I’ve got a plan that I’ve been thinking about for ever and ever so long. I’m going to try and persuade Dad to let us put in hogs.”
“Hogs,” repeated the Dean in a baffled tone. “Hogs, my dear. Who ever heard of raising hogs when they could raise anything else at all?”
“Well, we’re going to if Dad will let me. I just can’t stay here in this beautiful place with nothing to worry over, while the family are all worried to death.”