“I hate to think the boy is dishonest,” confessed her chum slowly. “But, of course, it does look strange. If he had picked up the watch, and sold it to some dishonest person, he might have made fifteen dollars. Oh, Amy! it is awful to distrust anybody.”
“Humph! Maybe it is. But Mark thinks a lot of that watch and I think we ought to tell him.”
“I suppose you are right,” agreed Jessie, with a sigh.
CHAPTER IX
TROUBLE IN PROSPECT
The two chums did not see Mark Stratford for some days, in spite of the fact that the young aviator came out of his accident so miraculously. They had not been at home when he had called to thank Mrs. Norwood for her kindness, and he was not likely to come especially to Roselawn to call on Jessie and Amy, for both his age and his various interests precluded his desiring the society of girls so young. Amy sometimes said, glumly:
“Darry and his friends think they haven’t any time for their ‘kid sisters’ and their friends. But wait till they want something—a button sewed on, or knicker tapes fixed, or a book found, or something. Then ‘little sister’ is just as handy to have around as a little red wagon. Humph! What is six or seven years in age, Jess? I ask you.”
“Six years of age will make all the difference for us that it has for Darry and Burd—and more,” laughed Jessie Norwood. “Don’t be wishing your life away, dear.”
“I’m not,” declared her chum. “I don’t want to be any older than I am. I have none of Belle’s aspirations for grown-up-ness, let me tell you. Only, I have always wished that Darry was younger than I, so that I could boss him and snub him and do all those nice things to him that other girls do who have younger brothers.”
“Oh, Amy!” cried Jessie, horrified, for she secretly thought Darrington Drew a wonderful fellow.
“Now, don’t ‘Oh, Amy!’ me, please, honey. I mean what I say. See how Nell Stanley bosses Bob and Fred around.”