I miss you so much, more than I did at first, but I'm trying to be a very good boy and stick to business. I can hardly wait to see you. Give my kindest regards to Miss Page, and tell her not to get any demerits between now and the time of my visit, as she must do whatever the Tuckers do on that visit.
Your own Zebedee.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ZEBEDEE'S VISIT.
Mr. Tucker's promise of a visit did all that I knew it would for Dum. She worked off her demerits without a murmur; studied her lessons diligently; soon caught up in her classes; and was altogether an exemplary Dum.
If his promise of a visit worked such wonders, his visit completed the miracle. We had already come through our mid-year examinations, some with flying colors and some with tattered banners like the poor Confederate flags that you see in the Valentine Museum in Richmond,—but the thing was that we were through and none of our little crowd of cronies had failed. Annie Pore carried off the honors in Latin, thanks to the drilling she had been brought up on by the severe Oxford graduate. Dum was easily first in mathematics. Dee seemed to know the physiology off by heart. History was Mary Flannigan's forte and not a date from Noah's flood to the San Francisco earthquake could stump her. Literature was what most interested me, and it would have been silly not to get an honor when it did seem so easy.
We were rather proud of our achievements as a coterie of chums, and Miss Peyton, as a reward of merit, let all of us go to the station to meet Mr. Tucker, accompanied by Miss Cox.
How good it was to see him! I believe I was almost as glad as Tweedles. He looked very boyish indeed as he swung off the Pullman, a suitcase in one hand and a great basket, neatly covered with purple paper, in the other.