"R.'s propensity for eavesdropping and similar ungentlemanly actions renders it unadvisable to write anything here that I do not want read by others. Were it not for the aforesaid propensity and one or two lesser faults I could like the boy immensely. I have hopes, however, that when he realizes how contemptible and petty these things are he will cease doing them. He told me once that his favorite book was Froissart. I wonder if he thinks Froissart was ever guilty of listening behind doors, spying into others' diaries and swearing like a tough?"
Wonder how he knew?
* * * * *
Two days after he went to town I met him going out of the house with some golf sticks. I went along with him to the meadow and watched him hitting the little white ball. After a bit he let me try it. It wasn't easy, though, you bet! But when I'd sort of got the hang of it I could hit them right well. He said I did bully and if I liked I could help him lay out a nine-hole course the next afternoon and we'd have some games. So we did. We paced off the distances between the holes and put up sticks with bits of white cloth on them. The housekeeper gave us an old sheet. And the next day we played a game. Of course he beat me. But he said I would make a good player if I tried hard and kept at it. After that we used to play almost every day, if it wasn't too hot. Only if I didn't have my lessons good he wouldn't play.
One day I got behind the stone wall—we called it Stoney Bunker—and couldn't get out, and said "darn." And Twigg picked up the balls and started back to the house.
"Golf's a gentleman's game, Raymond," he said. "We'll wait until yon get your temper back."
That made me mad and I swore some more. And there wasn't any more golf for nearly a week. He won't get mad, too; that's what makes it so beastly. It got pretty hot the last of the month and there wasn't much to do except lay around and read. We had lessons before breakfast sometimes while it was nice and cool on the veranda; and in the forenoon we went swimming. One day he asked if I wanted him to read to me. I said he could if he liked. I wanted him to, but I didn't want him to know it. So we sat on the lawn and he read "Kidnapped," the book he'd spoken about. It was a Scotch story and simply great. After that when the afternoons were too hot for golf or riding he'd read.
I forgot to say that dad went away about the middle of the month and stayed a week, I guess.
"Hello," said Twigg, "where are you going?"
"Oh, just for a ride," I said. He was on the porch and so I pulled Little
Nell up alongside the rail.