"He asked me if he could go to the fair at Middletown! He wanted his
next week's allowance."

"William," and Mrs. Lee's gentle voice was stern, "you do spoil that
boy dreadfully!"

"He's with Jim Archer!" Peggy put in. She knew that her mother did not
like Jim Archer.

"Billy's with him a lot," added Barbara.

"He teases us girls all the time, too, Mother! He put June bugs in my
bed last night!" cried Alice.

"Billy is certainly in all wrong just now," answered Mr. Lee with a
twinkle in his eyes.

"But _do_ you think these fairs are quite the places for boys like
Billy and Jim Archer--alone?" asked Mrs. Lee with a troubled look. "He
should have been home long ago! They must have ridden their wheels!"

"Don't worry, little mother! Billy will come home tired and hungry and
none the worse for the fair! Why, when I was a boy I never missed a
fair anywhere around and always walked, too! _They_ used to be real
fairs--nothing like them these days!"

The children knew that when their father began his "when I was a boy,"
it could mean a story if there was a little coaxing!