by Nell Speed
"Mr. Uncle Sam, ---- Building, New York.
"Dear Uncle S.:
"Yours of the inst. rec'd., first. Jo--that's my dad and He's a peach too let me tell you--says your idea suits him fine and anyway he always goes to New York the first two weeks in June on business and then I have to stay with Aunt Maria at Sunny Glen and I hate it because she is so clean. I hate to milk too and she is so afraid I'll get drowned when I swim in the icepond. She is a terrible nut because I can swim fine. I've got a monogram for my sweater for swimming at the Y. M. C. A. pool and that's bigger and deeper than old spit-in-the-fire Aunt Maria's dinky little icepond. Daddy took me in the roadster over to the next town to order the stuff for the canoe. What do you think would be a good name for her after we finish it? We've put up part of the skeleton already. Sometimes on a straight road Jo lets me run the roadster--it's a Mercer. Do you like Mercers? I like them the best and so does Jo. I can't change gear very good yet and I am too young to get a license but I am strong enough to crank it. I've got right much muscle. Did you like to fight when you were a boy? I love my black eyes on other people. Jo says it is tough to fight, so he boxes with me. He can box fine, too. He can beat me swimming and diving all to pieces, too. I've got to stop now because Pete is whistling for me to come catch with him.
"Rept. HAL ALLEN."
CHAPTER II.
"Jo, I wish you would bring me a Remington rifle from New York. I'm oldenough to have a good one now, and tell my reformer I named the canoe'Uncle Sam'. I like that old man so much I wish he'd come down here tolive."
"So long, Son! I hope you will have a peach of a time at your camp. Oh,yes! Aunt Maria told me to be sure and tell you not to go swimming butonce a day, but I always lived in my bathing suit--at least we will sayI had a bathing suit--and you can do the same."
It was only an hour's trip to New York and Jo was busy thinking aboutthe change in Hal and wondering if Uncle Sam would consider it strangefor him to invite him to go home on a visit. He decided he would go byUncle Sam's office and speak to him and make an engagement for thetheatre that night.
Jo Allen stopped a minute in front of Uncle Sam's office door to get outa card and then he rang the bell. A very handsome, auburn-haired,green-eyed girl answered his ring and he gave her his card with a ratherbewildered smile, for he wondered why such an old man as Uncle Sam keptsuch a darned good-looking female to tickle the keys.
"May I see Uncle Sam?" he asked.
"Why, certainly!" she said. "Please come in."
Her "Certainly" sounded Southern to Jo. He might have thought some morebut he was interrupted by the girl.
"You will sit down, won't you?" she smiled at him from her swivel chair.
"Thank you! Will Uncle Sam be along soon do you think?" he queried.
"Oh! I thought you understood. Why, Mr. Allen, I am Uncle Sam."
"Ohgoodlord!" Jo said it very loud and as though it were all one word.Then after a minute, "What the devil will Hal say when he finds hisUncle Sam is a woman?"
"I see no reason why he should know." Uncle Sam was very calm andunconcerned.
"But you see I swore I'd bring Uncle Sam back on a visit. I had it allplanned out that Uncle Sam and I would take in a show to-night...."
"I don't reckon Uncle Sam would mind going to the theatre, Mr. Allen.You might ask him," said the girl very frankly.
"Good for you, Uncle Sam,--you are a peach, after all. Hal may bedisappointed, but, believe me, I am not. I wish you would tell me yourname."
Jo was looking much happier now. He had forgotten what Hal would saywhen he got home Uncle Samless,--but really her hair and eyes wereenough to make him forget and her voice was very musical with itsSouthern accent.
"Page Carter," she told him, "and I suppose you want to know the whysand wherefores of Uncle Sam's business. Well, you can probably tell frommy name that I am a Virginian and from my occupation that I am poor, andif you could see my brain at work or my poor attempts at sewing, youwould see why I had to choose this way of making a living. Yes, I had todo it. You see, my mother and father are dead and I could not accept myfriends' kind invitations to come and be their barnacles."
"Miss Carter, you need not worry about the workings of your brain. Thatwas a dandy bluff you put up. I could see you with white hair, seated ata desk, writing Hal about your boyhood scrapes. Let's make it a supperbefore the theatre. Are you game?"
"Sure," she said.
Jo noticed she did not have to look in a mirror to make her hatbecoming.
"Mr. Allen, your son has written me so much about you that I feel asthough I knew you. That is very bromidic, but it is so."
Jo never knew what they had for dinner and Page Carter did not get manyof the lines of the play. She had always been strong for black hair andgrey eyes. She knew, too, that he was successful from his clothes andHal's remarks about the Mercer, and he surely was an amusing companion.Hal interested her. New York wasn't much when you were in it by yourselfand it was very evident that Jo liked her and his grey eyes werebeginning to look....
The play was over; and she had promised to meet him for lunch andafterwards to pick out a rifle for Hal.
A week later Hal jumped out of the canoe and rushed up to the boys incamp and waved a yellow slip of paper before them. "Listen," he yelled,"'Be home to-morrow. Got rifle. Uncle Sam with me. Dad.'"