"Splints? Was it as bad as that? The poor girl, no wonder she--fibbed. I
would too, if I had to stand for splints."

"Why don't you say 'stand splints,' and not use that horrid slang,"
corrected Dorothy.

"But she didn't stand them, she stood for them, with the other foot. You
see, Doro, sometimes the much despised slang is--the real thing," and
with a tantalizing swish of her skirts, and a most frivolous toss of her
head Tavia called "Ta-ta!" and dashed across the fields with the lunch
box under her arm.

"She's the kind of girl!" commented Joe, who had been busy making a bow
and arrow for Roger. "If her brother Jack had a little of her spunk he
would not be where he is."

"Why?" asked Dorothy, "doesn't Johnnie get along well at school?"

"At school?" echoed Joe, "he is never there to get along at all. I think
it is clothes that keeps him home. I was going to ask Aunt Libby if any
of mine might be spared--"

"Why, of course, you have some that are too small. I will see about them
myself. It is too bad those children have no one to manage for them."

"What's the matter with their mother?"

"I don't know--that is--of course they have their mother, but she does
not seem to know how to manage."