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386
The Keeper of the Bees

are a whole lot of things about me that she doesn’t know as well as she might, and college is one of them.”

Then the Scout Master amply proved to Jamie the claim that had been made. He felt himself being subjected to a long look. He felt the length of a small figure pressing against him. He felt a hand unusually clean slipping up over his left side. He heard a voice so soft and sweet that it reminded him of a certain telephone voice that he knew.

The voice wailed: “Oh, Jamie! Your side didn’t tear, did it? You ain’t got it all to do over again, have you?”

Jamie put his arm around the little Scout.

“Why, no,” he said, “my side’s fine! It’s getting better every day. I have it in the back of my head that in two or three months more I will not even have to wear the lightest kind of a pad or a bandage.”

The Scout Master looked up.

“Then what's the matter?”

Jamie hesitated.

“Your face looks pasty and your eyes are dead tired. You look all beat out. You look just like I do when the Scouts go to rough-housing and I’ve had to lick the bunch. Sometimes I look at my face when I brush my teeth and I can see just how big my job is. Right around my eyes I can see it. And I can see things around your eyes now. What’s the matier?

Jamie thought swiftly. He did not want to tell the little Scout what was the matter, in Mr. Meredith’s absence. He did not want Mrs, Meredith worried with a