“Hmph!” from Sandy. “Yes, Mister Darwin and Mister Huxley and a lot of for’n stuff. He’s got a heap of French and German books, but a lot of good they do us, since we can’t read ’em. He’s got five volumes of chess alone, and books and books ’bout cattle and pigs and horses. Just s’f any boy wanted to read that sort of bunk. It’s a doggone shame. If it wasn’t for the bunkhouse Hilda and I never would ’ve had no ejucation at all.”
Cheerio laughed. He could not help himself, though he quickly repressed it, as he felt the girl beside him stiffening.
“Well, old man, the stuff from the bunkhouse will do you more harm than good. I wouldn’t touch it with a stick. Tell you what we’ll do. When we’re through with the Musketeers, we’ll have a regular course of reading.”
“You said there were three sequels to the Musketeers.”
“So there are, and we’ll read them too; but we want to vary our reading. Now we’ll tackle a bit of Scott and then there’s some poetry I want you to read and——”
“Poetry! Slush-mush! Gee, we don’t want any poetry.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Wait till you hear the kind of poetry I’m going to read to you. Wait till we get into the ‘Idylls of the King.’”
“Idols! You mean gods like the savages worship?”
“No—but never mind. You’ll see when we get to them.”
Hilda said, with some pride: