"We may be driven to worse things than that by fall," I replied ruefully.

CHAPTER IV

_In Which We Take Boarders_

Four weeks of unalloyed bliss and then the summer vacation times arrived, bringing joy to the heart of the Polydores and the teacher of the ungraded room, but deep gloom to the hearthside of the Wades.

One misfortune always brings another. A rival applicant received the coveted attorneyship and we bade a sad farewell to piano, saddle-horse, automobile and journey, the furnishings to our Little House of Dreams.

"I did want you to have a car, Lucien," sighed Silvia, regretfully, "and you worked so hard this last year, you need a trip. Won't you go somewhere with Rob--without me?"

I a.s.sured her it would be no vacation without her.

"Do you know, Lucien," she proposed diffidently, "I think it would be an excellent plan to invite Uncle Issachar to visit us. He knows no more about children than I do--than I did, I mean, and if he should see the Polydores he'd give us five thousand each for the children we didn't have."

I wouldn't consent to this plan. I had met Uncle Issachar once. He was a crusty old bachelor with a morbid suspicion that everyone was working him for his money. I don't wonder he thought so. He had no other attractions.

Perceiving the strength of my opposition Silvia sweetly and sagaciously refrained from further pressure.

"We should not repine," she said. "We have health and happiness and love. What are pianos and cars and trips compared to such a.s.sets?"

What, indeed! I admitted that things might be worse.

Alas! All too soon was my statement substantiated. That night after we had gone to bed, I heard a taxicab sputtering away at the house next door.

"The Polydores must have unexpected guests," I remarked.

"I trust they brought no children with them," murmured Silvia drowsily.

The next morning while we were at breakfast, the odor of June roses wafting in through the open window, the delicious flavor of red-ripe strawberries tickling our palate, and the antic.i.p.ation of rice griddle-cakes exhilarating us, the millennium came.

For the five young Polydores bore down upon us _en ma.s.se_.

"Father and mother have gone away," proclaimed Ptolemy, who was always spokesman for the quintette.

This intelligence was of no particular interest to us--not then, at least. We rarely saw father and mother Polydore, and they were apparently of no need to their offspring.

Ptolemy's next announcement, however, was startling and effective in its dramatic intensity.

"We've come over to stay with you while they are away."

I laughed; jocosely, I thought.

Silvia paid no heed to my forced hilarity, but e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed gaspingly:

"Why, what do you mean!"

"They have gone away somewhere," enlightened our oracle. "They went to the train last night in a taxi. They have gone somewhere to find out something about some kind of aborigines."

"Which reminds me," I remarked reminiscently, "of the man who traveled far and vainly in search of a certain plant which, on his return, he found growing beside his own doorstep."

Silvia paid no heed to my misplaced pleasantry. She was right--as usual. It was no time for levity.

"I don't see," spoke my unappreciative wife, addressing Ptolemy, "why their absence should make any difference in your remaining at home.

Gladys can cook your meals and put Diogenes to bed as usual."

"Gladys has gone," piped Demetrius. "She left yesterday afternoon. She was only staying till she could get her pay."

"Father forgot to get another girl in her place," informed Ptolemy, "and he forgot to tell mother he had forgotten until just before they went to the train. She said it didn't matter--that we could just as well come over here and stay with you."

"She said," added Pythagoras, "that you were so crazy over children, that probably you'd be glad to have us stay with you all the time."

My last strawberry remained poised in mid-air. It was quite apparent to me now that there was nothing funny about this situation.

"Milk, milk!" whimpered Diogenes, pulling at Silvia's dress and making frantic efforts to reach the cream pitcher.

Huldah had come in with the griddle-cakes during this avalanche of news.

"Here, all you kids!" commanded our field marshal, as she picked up Diogenes, "beat it to the kitchen, and I'll give you some breakfast.

Hustle up!"

The Polydores, whose eyes were bulging with expectancy and semi-starvation, tumbled over each other in their eagerness to "hustle up and beat it to the kitchen." Our oiler of troubled waters followed, and there was a.s.surance of a brief lull.

"What shall we do!" I exclaimed helplessly when the door had closed on the last Polydore. I felt too limp and impotent to cope with the situation. Not so Silvia.

"Do!" she echoed with an intensity of tone and feeling I had never known her to display. "Do! We'll do something, I am sure! I will not for a moment submit to such an imposition. Who ever heard of such colossal nerve! That father and mother should be brought back and prosecuted. I shall report them to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But we won't wait for such procedure. We'll express each and every Polydore to them at once."

"I should certainly do that P.D.Q. and C.O.D.," I acquiesced, "if the Polydore parents could be located, but you know the abodes of aborigines are many and scattered."

My remarks seemed to fall as flat as the flapjacks I was siruping.

Silvia arose, determination in every lineament and muscle, and crossed the room. She opened the door leading into the kitchen.

"Ptolemy," she demanded, "where have your father and mother gone?"

He came forward and replied in a voice somewhat smothered by cakes and sirup.

"I don't know. They didn't say."

"We can find out from the ticket-agent," I optimistically a.s.sured her.

"They never bother to buy tickets. Pay on the train," Ptolemy explained.

My legal habit of counter-argument a.s.serted itself.