“But Joe did it,” Roger interrupted once, wonderingly. “And Joe is not a bad boy.”
“He is at least unwise,” murmured Tavia, and Nat was forced to explain that Joe, though not in any sense wicked, had been foolish and thoughtless to do the thing he had done.
“But I just had to go and find him,” Roger persisted. “And how could I do it if I didn’t take the train?”
At the prospect of having to begin his lecture all over again, Nat gave up in despair and changed the subject.
“Do you mind telling me, old lad,” he asked gravely, “how you happened to be using that tree for a parking place——”
“And a rather insecure one at that,” murmured Tavia, with a chuckle.
“At an hour when, by all rights, you should have been at home and in bed?” finished Nat.
Tavia felt the small boy’s hand tighten in hers and knew that he was about to recall what had been, to him, a rather dreadful experience.
“I was walking around in the woods, thinking I might find Joe,” he explained, “when I saw something funny and black coming through the woods.”
“Oh,” shivered Tavia, in mock terror. “How terrible! What was it?”