“Yep,” laughed Joe. “And he is a rogue. You ought to heard him in class the other day. Professor Brown was giving a nature lesson and he asked Rogue, ‘How does a bee sting?’ and Roger says, ‘Just awful!’ What do you think of that?”
“A graduate of the school of experience,” commented Tavia. “Come on, now, folks. Joe and Roger are staying at our house, too—for a while.”
She started off, arm in arm with her own brother, and Dorothy followed with Joe and Roger, the boys carrying all “the traps,” as Johnny called the baggage.
The present home of the Travers family was much different from that home as introduced to my readers in “Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-day”; for although Mrs. Travers would never be a model housekeeper, the influence of Tavia was felt in the home even when she was away at school.
Mr. Travers, too, had succeeded in business and was not only an officer in the town, and of political importance, but he was interested in a construction company, and the family was prospering.
Mrs. Travers realized the help and stimulation Dorothy had given to Tavia, and she welcomed her daughter’s friend very warmly. Tavia “took hold” immediately and straightened up the house and seized the reins of government. Tavia was proud and she did not wish Dorothy to see just how “slack” her mother still was in many ways.
Her own dainty room she shared with Dorothy; and while the latter was going about, calling on old friends, during the first two days, Tavia worked like a Trojan to make the whole house spick and span.
“It’s worth a fortune to have you around the house again, Daughter,” declared Mr. Travers.
“All right, Squire,” she said, laughingly giving him his official title. “When I get through at Glenwood I reckon I’ll have to be your housekeeper altogether—eh?”
“And will you be content to come home and stay?” he asked her, pinching the lobe of her ear.