and came back with Peter's last, pitiful letter. She gave it to Vic and
sat down again on the arm of the Mission chair and waited, looking at him
from, under her lashes, her head tilted forward.

Vic was impressed, impressed to a round-eyed silence. He knew his dad's
handwriting, and he unfolded the sheet and read what Peter had written.

"I found that letter in--his hand--that morning." Helen May tried to
keep her voice steady. "You mustn't tell any one about it, Vic. They
mustn't know. But you see, he--after doing that to get the money for me,
why--you see, Vic, we've _got_ to go there. And we've got to make good.
We've got to."

There must have been a little of Peter's disposition in Vic, too. He
lay for several minutes staring hard at a patch of sunlight on the
farther wall. I suppose when one is fifteen the ambition to be a movie
star dies just as hard as does later the ambition to be president of
the United States.

"You see, don't you, Vic?" Helen May watched him nervously.

"Well, what do you think I am?" Vic turned upon her with a scowl. "You
might have said it was for your health. You wasn't playing fair. You--you
kept saying it was to raise goats!"




CHAPTER FOUR