did it return that night, even when Susan's shrill voice caroled
through the hall:

"Supper's ready, supper's ready,
Hurry up, or you'll be late,
Then you'll sure be cross and heady
If there's nothin' left to ate."




CHAPTER III

FOR JERRY AND NED


It was Susan Betts who discovered that Keith was not reading so much
that summer.

"An' him with his nose always in a book before," as she said one day
to Mrs. McGuire. "An' he don't act natural, somehow, neither, ter my
way of thinkin'. Have YOU noticed anything?"

"Why, no, I don't know as I have," answered Mrs. McGuire from the
other side of the fence, "except that he's always traipsin' off to the
woods with his father. But then, he's always done that, more or less."

"Indeed he has! But always before he's lugged along a book, sometimes
two; an' now--why he hain't even read the book his father give him on
his birthday. I know, 'cause I asked him one day what 't was about,