"It's really all right, girls. I almost fear I've been neglecting Dabney. He isn't a little boy [Page 557] any more."
"He isn't a man yet," exclaimed Samantha, "and he talks slang dreadfully."
"But then he does grow so!" remarked Keziah.
"Mother," said Pamela, "couldn't you get Dab to give Dick the slang, along with the old clothes?"
"We'll see about it," replied Mrs. Kinzer.
It was very plain that Dabney's mother had begun to take in a new idea about her son. It was not the least bit in the world unpleasant to find out that he was "growing in more ways than one," and it was quite likely that she had indeed kept him too long in roundabouts.
CHAPTER III.
Dick Lee had been more than half right about the village being a dangerous place for him with such an unusual amount of clothing over his ordinary uniform.
The very dogs, every one of whom was an old acquaintance, barked at him on his way home that night; and, proud as were his ebony father and mother, they yielded to his earnest entreaties, first, that he might wear his present all the next day, and, second, that he might betake himself to the "bay," early in the morning, and so keep out of sight "till he got used to it."
The fault with Dab Kinzer's old suit, after all, had lain mainly in its size rather than its materials, for Mrs. Kinzer was too good a manager to be really stingy.