He felt that Mrs. Travis must read in his face the curiosity that consumed him. He did not know that deep in her heart was a poignant regret that Jerry should have, in such friendly fashion, adopted this stranger--Jerry, who was usually a little shy! Of course she could not know that it was because he had admitted to Jerry that he, too, found something in Kettle that approached the magic--that he had stood on the Wishing-rock and had wished, very seriously, and if Mrs. Travis had known what that wish was her regret would, indeed, have been real alarm! After Jerry, with Pepper, had gone off to bed and Dr. Travis with Bigboy had slipped out to the little barn, John Westley said involuntarily, as though the words tumbled out in spite of anything he could do: "Of course, you know that I'm completely amazed to find a spot like this--off here on the mountain."
Mrs. Travis smiled, as though there were lots of things in her head that she was not going to say.
"Does Sunnyside seem attractive? We haven't any wealth--as the world reckons it, but the doctor and I love books and we've made our little corner in the world rich with them."
"Yes!" The mother's smile flashed, though there was a wistful look in her eyes. "But Jerry's growing into a big girl."
"You must have an unusually excellent school here." John Westley blushed under the embarrassment of--as he plainly put it--"pumping" Jerry's mother.
Her explanation was simple. "It's as good as mountain schools are. When the snow is so deep that she cannot go over the trail I have taught her at home. You see I have not always lived at Miller's Notch--I came here--just before Jerry was born."
"Has she many playmates?" He remembered Jerry chattering about some Rose and Clementina and a Jimmy Chubbs.
"A few--but there are only a few of her own age. And she is outgrowing her school." A little frown wrinkled Mrs. Travis' pretty brow. "That is the first real problem that has come to Sunnyside for--a very long time. Life has always been so simple here. We have all we can want to eat and the doctor's practice, though it isn't large, keeps us clothed, but--Jerry's beginning to want something more than the school down there--and these few chums and--even I--can give her!"