"So Pete and me goes off to school in the afternoon, and Pa says to Ma, 'Keep a stiff upper lip, Ma, the boys are all right,' he says, and I guess Pa knows.
"There's quite a bunch in our family now, and some of 'em ain't old enough for school yet, and I s'pose Ma 'll feel gloomy about 'em when they start, same as she did about Pete."
He rose, put on his cap, and informed Lucien that he was going to look at the bulletin boards to see how the baseball team was doing. "I hope they'll lose," he added.
"Why?" Lucien demanded.
"Well, they've lost three games in a row now to the tail enders, and if they lose this one it'll make me gloomier'n ever, and maybe I'll be so gloomy there'll be no sense in it, and I'll begin to cheer up."
CHAPTER X
It was Miss Whimple who heard the first detailed account of William's experiences as a rent collector, and she heard it from William's own lips. She sent a note to the office one day, asking Whimple to send the lad up, ostensibly with some papers, "but in reality," she added, "because I want him to take luncheon with me; I want to ask him about some things."
"And if she wants to ask him she'll ask him, all right," Whimple mused to himself, "and William 'll have to answer, for Aunt is a remarkably bright woman, and a remarkably direct woman, too."
To William he said, "You'll take these papers up to Miss Whimple, and you'll take luncheon with her at her house——"