“dalton! dalton! hurrah!”

“look out—do, tavia! you’ll be out of the window next.”

“no, i won’t. that isn’t the very next thing i’m going to do.”

“what is ‘next,’ then?”

“going to hug you!” declared tavia, and proceeded to put her threat into execution, smashing dorothy’s hat down over her eyes, and otherwise adding to the general “mussed-up condition” resulting from the long journey from glenwood to the town which was still tavia’s home, and for which dorothy would always have a soft spot in her heart.

“oh, dear me!” gasped tavia. “it is so delightsome, doro doodlebug, to have you really going home with me to stay at my house for two whole weeks. it is too good to be true!” and out of the window her head went again, thrust forth far to see the station the train was approaching.171 dorothy made another frantic grab at her skirt.

“do be careful! you’ll knock your silly head off on a telegraph pole.”

“no loss, according to the opinion of all my friends,” sighed tavia. “do you know the latest definition of ‘a friend’? it’s a person who stands up for you behind your back and sits down on you hard when you are in his company.”

the brakes began to grind and tavia put on her hat and grabbed her hand baggage.

“dear old dalton,” whispered dorothy, looking through the window with a mist in her eyes. “what good times we had here when we were just—just children!”

“dead oodles of fun!” quoth tavia. “come on, doro. you’ll get carried past the station and have to walk back from the water-tank.”

but dorothy was ready to leave in good season. and when the girls got off the train who should meet them but three smartly-dressed youngsters who proceeded to greet them with wild yells and an indian war dance performed in public on the station platform.

“oh, johnny!” gasped tavia, capturing her own young brother.

“and joe and roger!” cried dorothy. “how did you boys get here ahead of us? aren’t you the dears?”

“school closed two days earlier than usual,”172 explained joe dale, who was now almost as tall as dorothy and a very manly-looking fellow.

“don’t kiss me so much on the street, sister,” begged roger, under his breath. “folks will see.”

“and what if?” demanded dorothy, laughing.

“they’ll think i’m a little boy yet,” said roger. “and you know i’m not.

“no. you are no longer dorothy’s baby,” sighed the girl. “she’s lost her two ‘childers’.”

“never mind, sis,” sympathized joe. “you were awful good to us when we were small. we sha’n’t forget our ‘little mum’ right away; shall we, rogue?”

“is that what the other boys call him at school?” demanded dorothy, with her arm still around the little fellow.

“yep,” laughed joe. “and he is a rogue. you ought to heard him in class the other day. professor brown was giving a nature lesson and he asked rogue, ‘how does a bee sting?’ and roger says, ‘just awful!’ what do you think of that?”

“a graduate of the school of experience,” commented tavia. “come on, now, folks. joe and roger are staying at our house, too—for a while.”

she started off, arm in arm with her own brother, and dorothy followed with joe and roger, the boys carrying all “the traps,” as johnny called the baggage.

the present home of the travers family was173 much different from that home as introduced to my readers in “dorothy dale: a girl of to-day”; for although mrs. travers would never be a model housekeeper, the influence of tavia was felt in the home even when she was away at school.

mr. travers, too, had succeeded in business and was not only an officer in the town, and of political importance, but he was interested in a construction company, and the family was prospering.

mrs. travers realized the help and stimulation dorothy had given to tavia, and she welcomed her daughter’s friend very warmly. tavia “took hold” immediately and straightened up the house and seized the reins of government. tavia was proud and she did not wish dorothy to see just how “slack” her mother still was in many ways.

her own dainty room she shared with dorothy; and while the latter was going about, calling on old friends, during the first two days, tavia worked like a trojan to make the whole house spick and span.

“it’s worth a fortune to have you around the house again, daughter,” declared mr. travers.

“all right, squire,” she said, laughingly giving him his official title. “when i get through at glenwood i reckon i’ll have to be your housekeeper altogether—eh?”

“and will you be content to come home and stay?” he asked her, pinching the lobe of her ear.

174 “why not?” she demanded, cheerfully.

“but if dorothy goes to college——?”

“i can’t have dorothy always. i wish i could,” sighed tavia. “but i know, as grandma potter says, ‘every tub must stand on its own bottom.’ i have got to learn to get along without dorothy some time.”

but that night, when she and her chum had gone to bed, she suddenly put both arms around dorothy and hugged her—hard.

“what is it, dear?” asked dorothy, sleepily.

“oh, dear dorothy dale!” whispered tavia. “i hope we marry twins—you and i. then we needn’t be separated—much.”

“marry twins? mercy!”

“i mean, each of us a twin—twins that belong together,” explained tavia. “then we needn’t be so far apart.”

“what a girl you are, tavia!” laughed dorothy, kissing her. “why, we won’t have to think about the possibility of our having a chance to be married——”

“mercy!” chuckled tavia, recovering herself. “what an elongated sentence you’re fixin’ up.”

“where—where was i?” murmured dorothy.

“never mind, doro. the man who marries either of us will have to agree to let us live right next door to each other. isn’t that right?”

“oh, more than that,” agreed dorothy.175 “he’ll have to agree that we shall be together most of the time anyway. but don’t worry. i think seriously of being a she philanthropist, and of course no man will want to marry me then.”

“and i’ll be a—a policewoman—or a doctress,” gasped tavia. “either job will drive ’em away.”

“and—bob—is—coming—to-morrow,” yawned dorothy, and the next minute was asleep.

before the boys came, however, dorothy and tavia went to see sarah ford. and it was on the way back that they had their adventure with the ox-cart. of course, it was tavia’s fault; but the young man driving the oxen had such a good-natured smile, and such red hair, and so many freckles——

“no use!” tavia declared. “i felt just like going up to him on the spot and calling him ‘brother.’ i know the boys must always have called him ‘bricktop,’ or ‘reddy’—and i’m reddy’s brother, sure,” touching her own beautiful ruddy hair. “how i did hate to be called ‘carrots’ when i went to miss ellis’s school, doro.”

but this isn’t the story of the ox-cart ride. the cart was full of hay—up to the high sides of it. there were a couple of bags of feed, too.

“oh, i ought to know him,” tavia assured dorothy. “he’s working for my father. i remember the old cart. they are digging away the top of longreach hill. say! couldn’t we ride?”

176 “of course, miss,” said the red-headed and good-natured young man. “whaw, buck! back, bright!” he snapped his long whiplash in front of the noses of the great black steers. they stopped almost instantly, and in a moment tavia wriggled herself in upon the hay from behind, and gave her hand to dorothy to help her in, too.

“oh! isn’t this fun?” gasped tavia, snuggling down in the sweet-smelling hay, while the span of big beasts swung forward on the road again.

“we’re too big to play at such games, i s’pose,” said dorothy, but her friend interrupted with:

“wait, for mercy’s sake, till we’re graduated. i’m afraid you’re going to be a regular poke before long, doro. ugh! wasn’t that a thank-you-ma’am? just see their broad backs wag from side to side. why! they’re as big as elephants!”

“suppose they should run away?” murmured dorothy.

but neither believed that was really possible. only, it was deliciously exciting to think of careening down the hill behind the great steers, with no red-headed young man to snap his whip and cry:

“hawther, bright! come up, buck!”

on the brow of longreach hill the red-headed young man stopped the oxen. it was a steep pitch just before them—then a long slant to the shallows of the river—quite half a mile from the hilltop to the river’s edge.

177 somebody shouted and beckoned the driver of the oxen away before he could help the girls out of the cart.

“wait a moment, ladies,” he begged, with a smile, and hurried to assist in the moving of a heavy slab of rock.

it was then three youths came running out of the grove, waving their hats and sticks.

“oh, look who has come!” cried tavia, seizing dorothy’s arm.

“ned and nat—and there’s bob, of course,” laughed dorothy. “what did i tell you, lady?”

a dog ran behind the boys—a funny, long bodied, short-legged dog. he cavorted about as gracefully as an animated sausage.

“look at the funny dog!” gasped tavia, immediately appearing to lose her interest in the three collegians. “is that a dachshund? oh-o-o!”

her scream was reasonable. the dog leaped in front of the steers’ noses. the huge creatures snorted, swung the cart-tongue around, and lurched forward down the steep descent!

the girls could not get out then. the road was too rocky. the oxen were really running away. their tails stiffened out over the front board of the cart and the cart itself bounded in the air so that the passengers could only cling and scream.

they were having quite all the excitement even tavia craved, thank you!