“Exactly.” And they both laughed over the illustration.
“But you see, Dad, I’ve got to find his mother and talk to her. I couldn’t be satisfied with so small a boy’s word on all this. Besides, there’s her husband’s pardon. I ought to talk to her about it, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, decidedly. Nicky is clever enough but as you say, he’s nothing but an ignorant little boy, and it wouldn’t be right to trust too much to him,” decided Dr. Hale.
“You see, I couldn’t possibly say another word to him tonight after the Washington letter and the ship model and everything,” went on Barbara seriously. “If I had so much as asked where their camp was, I’m sure he would have run away. He seemed to hate it all, as it was. Bashful you know, Dads,” Barbara explained.
“Yes, he would be. But I guess you’ve made him happy, just the same,” her father assured her. “To get that letter from Washington would have set some boys up proudly for the rest of their lives.”
“Oh, you couldn’t make Nicky proud,” Babs declared. “You see, he’s—boiled down.” This expression had become Babs’ special joke.
When they settled down to seriousness after that, it was decided that Babs and Cara should again visit the lighthouse and get from Captain Quiller what directions they could in hopes of finding the camp in the woods.
“And I’ll go along with you,” promised her father, “for a number of reasons.”
But it was actually two days later before the all-important trip could be made. The doctor had been called out of town, the captain had to have time to make sure he was divulging no secret that should have been withheld, and it took him a day to go out to the woods to see Mrs. Marcusi, as he could only leave his post at a certain hour of the afternoon. So Babs and Cara lived somehow, and Miss Davis was so relieved to be assured her model was safe, she really was, as Cara said, “quite sweet about it.”
All week long the Community House “fair,” as the exhibit was being called by the country folks, was in progress, and as Cara predicted, the girls’ committee got together again and worked even more enthusiastically than at first.