"
"And, boys, you know Joel would have gone if he could, don't you?" said
Polly again, the little anxious pucker deepening on her forehead.
"Ye--es," said Larry slowly, digging the toe of his tennis shoe into the
ground, as no one else said anything.
"Oh, he would, he would," said Polly, clasping her hands tightly together,
the color flying over her cheek. "Something must have happened to keep him
back"--as the boys, having nothing more to say, moved off. "Alexia, now I
_must_ go home, for I'm afraid--" of what, she didn't say.
"I'll go, too," said Alexia, springing after her, wild to find out what the
matter could be with Joel Pepper, to keep him from one of his favorite
sports on the pond.
"There isn't anything the matter with him," shouted back Frick, over his
shoulder, who had caught Polly's last words. "And he could have gone as
easy as not; he was in Mr. King's writing-room with the door locked."
"Grandpapa's writing-room, with the door locked!" repeated Polly, turning
around in a puzzled way. "Why--I don't see--oh!" Then she gave such a
squeal that Alexia hopped across the road in astonishment. "I know now.
Dear, splendid, old Joel! Boys!" She was up by them again, and talking so
fast that nobody understood for a moment or two what the whole thing was
about.
"For pity's sake, Polly Pepper!" Alexia was shaking her arm, the boys
crowding around Polly and hanging on every word.
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