Whistling as he was, he also was thinking and planning what he would say to Rip when he met him at the brook.
“I’ll say to him, when I see him, I’ll say just like this: ‘Rip, if I said anything yesterday to make you sore, why I’m darned sorry, yes, sir!’ Then I’ll say just to make him laugh: ‘We’ll kiss and make up, how about it?’ He’s bound to fall for that, I should think.”
Hands in his pockets and sauntering nonchalantly toward the little stream, he started another tune, but it stopped abruptly on his lips as he reached there. He looked about wonderingly.
Rip was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER XXI—GROWING DEEPER
For a second or two Westy was thoroughly alarmed, but soon felt reassured when his eyes fell upon the crystal-like water gurgling against the pearly stones.
“The little rascal, he’s gone straight up the brook to Lola’s to get away from me!”
With that knowledge under way he hurried back to the cabin to make himself look more presentable in the presence of ladies.
He was tying a little string tie, trying to knot it at just the right angle. In a cracked mirror that was just half its original size, he valiantly tried to accomplish the feat. He could see his face all right without standing on his toes and that notwithstanding his height. Of course, the cracks in the mirror gave him a most grotesque appearance. He really shivered as he viewed his own countenance. It looked so painfully distorted and his nose was cracked in three places. When he stood on his toes to see if he had tied the knot, all that appeared to his struggling vision was his Adam’s apple moving furiously with suppressed rage. So he gave it up and started out without caring another hang about appearances.
It was around ten o’clock when he struck off the main trail for Lola’s and it occurred to him that perhaps Rip wouldn’t like it, running him down in such a fashion. Rip was funny that way; Westy didn’t know exactly how to take him, but he knew this much—that a good deal of the younger boy’s skepticism was put on. But still he liked him in spite of that. He wanted the whole world to think he was something he wasn’t.