CHAPTER XIII.
THE TURKEY-TAIL FAN.
Harvie and Shorty arrived in due time and very glad we were to see them. Mary and Shorty rushed together like long lost brother and sister. They made a pony team it was hard to beat.
"Gee, I'm glad to see you!" exclaimed the boy. "You and I don't have to be grown up, do we, Mary?"
"Not on your life! No one will expect the impossible of us. The boys we know here are real grown-ups, lots older than Harvie Price, real college men. They are very nice but I feel like an awful kid with them. Of course Mr. Tucker is as young as any of us."
"Of course!" echoed Shorty. "Isn't he just great?"
"You bet."
When we were all dressed for the hop, Zebedee declared we looked pretty well in spite of our tan and freckles. He kept us on needles and pins all the time, threatening to tell the boys of our dough masks. At supper he repeatedly asked Blanche for hot rolls, insisting that she must have them.
"I certainly smelled hot rolls when I got back from Norfolk and it seems to me I saw batch after batch rising. Couldn't you spare me just one, Blanche?" And when the girl rushed from the room to explode in the kitchen, he said in a tone of the greatest concern: "Why, what is the matter with poor, dear Blanche? Do you think perhaps she has eaten them all herself?"