bothered him exceedingly asking him what the matter with him was and telling him to “cheer up, it wasn’t somebody’s funeral, you know.” Billie had been puzzled over his answer to that. He had muttered something about “it’s not anybody’s funeral yet, maybe, but everything had to start sometime.”
When Billie had innocently told Laura about it she was still more puzzled at the way Laura had acted. Instead of being sensible, she had suddenly buried her face in the pillow—they had been sitting on Billie’s bed, exchanging confidences—and fairly shook with laughter.
“Well, what in the world——” Billie had begun rather resentfully, when Laura had interrupted her with an hysterical: “For goodness sake, Billie, I never thought you could be so dense. But you are. You’re absolutely crazy, and so is Teddy, and so is everybody!”
And after that Billie never confided any of Teddy’s sayings to Laura again.
On this particular afternoon it did not take the girls long to find out that the boys had some good news to tell them.
“Come on down to the dock,” Teddy said, taking hold of Billie’s arm and urging her down toward the lake as he spoke. “Maybe we can find some canoes and rowboats that aren’t working.”
But when they reached the dock there was never a craft of any kind to be seen except those far out upon the glistening water of the lake. Of course the beautiful weather was responsible for this, for all the girls who had not lessons to do or errands in town had made a bee line—as Ferd Stowing expressed it—straight down to the lake.
“Oh, well, this will do,” said Teddy, sitting down on the edge of the little dock so that his feet could hang over and reaching up a hand for Billie. “Come along, everybody. We can look at the water, anyway.”
The girls and boys scrambled down obediently and there was great excitement when Connie’s foot slipped and she very nearly tumbled into the lake. Paul Martinson steadied her, and she thanked him with a little blush that made Laura look at her wickedly.
“How beautifully pink your complexion is in the warm weather, Connie,” she said innocently, adding
with a little look that made Connie want to shake her: “It can’t be anything
but
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