“I just had to do it, Uncle Ben. He’d prob’ly have been killed if I hadn’t.”
“And you might have been killed, you gallant little rescuer.”
“Well, it’s done now, and I’m glad I did it,” said Betsy, as she was carried upstairs, put in dry clothing and sent back to bed.
In the morning the adventurers turned out to be none the worse for their soaking. But oh, the wreck of the honeysuckle porch, and the flower-beds, and the noble trees whose heads had been lopped off! Nature had to work hard, with considerable help from the florist and the carpenter, to get things back into shapeliness. The honeysuckle porch had its broken vines trimmed off, the soaked pillows were dried out, and the place generally was restored to order. But Van slept there no more. His Betsy was better, and the freedom of the house was his again. September came, and with it the glad freedom of out-of-doors, and his old careless happy life.
“And now the long days of romping with Van were over.”
CHAPTER IX
MORE LESSONS
“BETSY,” said Mrs. Johns, “school begins next Monday. Would you like to go?”
“Oh, my, yes, Aunt Kate. May I?”
“Certainly. I haven’t bothered you much this summer about your studies, for there were so many other important things to learn. But I think you had better begin now.”