"Why don't you laugh? So you
wouldn't trust me for two cents, you old Elk skinflint, wouldn't you.
Well, then, the letter doesn't get mailed, that's all, for I happen to
have only one stamp left and that's going to Pee-wee Harris. Come on,
get your wits to work now, and we'll send him the invitation in the form
of a verse, what d'you say?"
He gave Tom such a push that even he couldn't help laughing as he
staggered against the tent-pole.
"I'm no good at writing verse," said he.
"Oh, but we'll jolly the life out of that kid when we get him away,"
said Roy.
It is a wise precept that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be
wise. Pee-wee Harris never dreamed of the discussion that had taken
place as to his going, and he accepted the invitation with a glad heart.
On the momentous morning when the trio set forth upon their journey,
Mary Temple, as glad as they, stood upon the steps at Grantley Square
and waved them a last good-bye.
"Don't forget," she called, "we're coming up in the car in August to
visit you and see the camp and that dreadful Jeb or Job or Jib or
whatever you call him, who smokes a corn-cob pipe--ugh!"
The last they saw of her was a girlish shrug of disgust at that strange
personage out of the West about whom (largely for her benefit) Roy and
others had circulated the most outlandish tales. Jeb Rushmore was
already ensconced in the unfinished camp, and from the few letters which
had come from him it was judged that his excursion east had not spoiled
him.
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