“Sound as a nut,” declared Jasper; “we found him streaking it down the locust path; he said he was going to run off to sea.”

“Run off to sea!” repeated Polly.  “Oh, Jasper!”

“Well, he was so frightened, of course he didn’t know what to say,” replied Jasper.  “And ashamed, too.  He didn’t care to show his head at home.  I don’t know as I blame him, Polly.  Well, it’s too bad about Phronsie’s party, isn’t it?” added Jasper, mopping up his face as the two went down the hall.

“Yes,” said Polly with a sigh, stopping at Mrs. Whitney’s door, “but, oh! think how happy we are now that Percy is safe, Jasper.”

“Still, it’s too bad for Phronsie,” repeated Jasper, looking back.

But Joel flatly declared that the first one that even so much as hinted that a single item of the arrangements for Phronsie’s getting-well party should be changed, he’d make it disagreeable as only he knew how, for that one when he got up from his bed.  “Yes, sir!” and he scolded, and fretted, and fussed, and laid down the law so generally to all, not excepting the doctor, that at last it was decided to let the party go on.  Then he lay back against the pillows quite exhausted, but with a beatific face.

“I should think you would be tired, Joe,” exclaimed Jasper, “you’ve bullied us so.  Dear me! people ought to be angelic when they’re sick, at least.”

“If you’d had him to take care of as I did,” observed Dr. Fisher, “you’d know better; goodness me! the little brown house scarcely held him when he was getting over the measles.”

“What’s the use of being sick,” said Joel reflectively, turning on his pillow, “if you can’t make people stand around, I’d like to know.  Now that point’s settled about Phronsie’s party, won’t you all go out?  I’d like to speak to Father Fisher a moment.”

“You don’t mean me, Joey?” said Mother Fisher at the head of the bed, holding her boy’s hand.

“Yes; you, too, Mamsie,” said Joel, giving her an affectionate glance, “it’s something that only the doctor and I are to know.”

“You’re not hurt anywhere else, are you, Joey?” asked his mother, a sudden alarm leaping to her black eyes.

“Not a scratch,” said Joel promptly.  “I want to see Father Fisher about something.  Sometime you shall know, Mamsie.”  He gave her hand a sudden pressure, then let it go.

“Perhaps you would better step out, my dear,” said the little doctor, nodding to his wife.  So Mrs. Fisher, smothering a sigh, went out reluctantly.

“All out?” asked Joel, trying to raise his head to see for himself.

“Every soul,” said Dr. Fisher.

“Well, see here, will you,” said Joel, pointing to the table, the schoolbooks scattered as he had left them, “pack those things all away in the closet on the shelf, you know, and put the rubbish on the floor there, back on the table?”

Dr. Fisher could not for his life, refrain from asking curiously, as he did as requested, “Been having a pull at the books, eh, Joe?”