They read and re-read, Nancy finding little secret words sticking on the canoe sails and peeping out of, what might have been a cloudburst, if the postcard had not carried with it the other explanation. This read “Beautiful Lake Tuketo by Moonlight” and it was the moonlight effect that was so apt to be misleading.
“He’s all right, at any rate,” remarked the mother, thus betraying her anxieties. “And he seems to be having a good time,” she sighed relievedly.
“Trust Ted for that,” Nancy reminded her. “But what an awful looking lot of boys! Just see my card! They look like a comedy parade.”
“Why Nancy! They’re fine looking little chaps, I’m sure,” defended Mrs. Brandon. “But I suppose that picture was taken to show the raising of Old Glory, not as a beauty contest illustration.”
“’S’cuse me,” murmured Nancy. “Of course, they’re—darlings, every one of them, but I wouldn’t swap our Ted for—the whole bunch!”
“Nancy—Brandon!!”
“Yes-sum!” confessed Nancy, glorifying in her pretended ungrammatic freedom.
CHAPTER II
AN INCIDENTAL EXPLOSION
Even the most difficult tasks are finally accomplished, and now Nancy was actually riding towards Boston. The details of closing up their little home had been rather confusing, especially as each member of the small family was starting out in a different direction, but it was all done at last, and soon Nancy would cross Boston and take the Maine line out toward New Hampshire.