“So’m I, Jean,” from Rex. “An’ I’ll do that extra copy my very best.”
“Oh, bother the extra copy!” Jean said. “I expect I was cross, too. Every one’s cross but you, Mother, and you’re a miracle! Have you told Jo?”
“No—get her yourself. Be off, both of you!” And Jean was gone like a flash.
Mrs. Weston looked hard at the two boys.
“I want you two to remember,” she said, “that Jean and Jo aren’t very old; not so tremendously older than you two. But they are responsible for your lessons, and it isn’t quite playing the game for you to make lesson-time hard for them. Please don’t.” She smiled at the downcast little faces. “Now come along: this room is really too hot. We’ll go out on the south verandah, and you two can cut up French beans for dinner, and I’ll read you a history story. Run and get the beans from Sarah.”
Billy hesitated.
“Mother, could we get the ponies ready first for the girls?”
Mrs. Weston patted his head.
“Yes—good idea. But hurry up.”
So when Jean and Jo came out presently, dressed for riding, they found Mrs. Weston in a rocking-chair on the verandah. A table near her bore a tray of glasses and a tall jug full of cool lemonade; and close at hand, under a pepper-tree, Pilot and Punch awaited them, groomed and saddled, and each in charge of a small boy.