“spry” he was all that a boy should be.

While Jo waited at the station, Ann Seymour was sitting impatiently in the train, looking forward to just such a place as Jo’s meadow to stretch her long legs in a good run. School and basket ball were very well in winter but she had grown as tired as Jo of the cold, and as soon as April weather brought out the buds on Boston Common, Ann grew restless and began to talk about Maine.

4 Ann was fourteen, just like Jo Bailey; her brother Ben was twelve, and Helen was ten. She was decidedly the baby of the family and one of the reasons for their all coming to Pine Ledge so early in the season. She had been dreadfully ill during the past year and Mr. Seymour had thought of Pine Ledge farm as the best place for Helen when they first talked about a summer vacation. So the plans were made and he had told the children about Jo—how he had no mother, and, because of this, they must share their own mother with him; how he lived bravely in the snow all winter and walked through the drifts to school; and how he knew all about the woods and the rocks and tides and went fishing, up-river and out to sea. He made Jo sound interesting, and the Seymours were waiting to see him quite as impatiently as he was waiting for them.

4

“Will there be Indians at Pine Ledge?” Helen’s round blue eyes were like saucers as she peered out of the car window into the woods and fields through which the train was sliding so rapidly. “Will there be real live Indians with feathers and paint on them?”

“Don’t be such a silly,” said Ben. He secretly hoped there were Indians but he wouldn’t have admitted it to any one. “Indians moved away from this country years ago, years and years ago, all except a few tame Indians. But perhaps there are bears out in those woods. Bears live where green5 bushes grow so thick. They hide in the bushes and jump out when you’re not looking.”

5

He was delighted to see Helen shiver in frightened excitement. It made him feel rather trembly, too, to think of bears as big as men that jumped out and growled.

“Have they big teeth?” asked Helen, as she pressed her small nose against the window glass, looking hard for a glimpse of a bear.

“I guess they have teeth! And round ears and claws and fur.”

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