"It looks too simple for the President--it ought to have more flourishes to it and titles and things, shouldn't it, Ken? You copy it and we'll walk straight down to the post office and mail it so that it will go on to-night's train." Tears were far from Keineth's eyes as she walked by Barbara's side down the white road between the fields of daisies and buttercups. The little cloud of loneliness that had for a brief time threatened her sky had disappeared and she was again a light-hearted little girl, eagerly awaiting the happy things that each new day at Overlook seemed to bring to her. CHAPTER V PILOT COMES TO OVERLOOK "This is the third time in a week that Billy's been late for dinner," said Mrs. Lee, looking from Billy's empty place at the table to his father's face. Mr. Lee was serving the steaming chicken and biscuits that Nora had placed on the table. "He asked me if he could go to the fair at Middletown! He wanted his next week's allowance." "William," and Mrs. Lee's gentle voice was stern, "you do spoil that boy dreadfully!" "He's with Jim Archer!" Peggy put in. She knew that her mother did not like Jim Archer. "Billy's with him a lot," added Barbara. "He teases us girls all the time, too, Mother! He put June bugs in my bed last night!" cried Alice. "Billy is certainly in all wrong just now," answered Mr. Lee with a twinkle in his eyes. "But _do_ you think these fairs are quite the places for boys like Billy and Jim Archer--alone?" asked Mrs. Lee with a troubled look. "He should have been home long ago! They must have ridden their wheels!" "Don't worry, little mother! Billy will come home tired and hungry and none the worse for the fair! Why, when I was a boy I never missed a fair anywhere around and always walked, too! _They_ used to be real fairs--nothing like them these days!" The children knew that when their father began his "when I was a boy," it could mean a story if there was a little coaxing! "Oh, tell us a story!" Alice cried. "Please do!" added Keineth. It would make them all forget to feel cross toward Billy! So, chuckling a little under his breath, Mr. Lee began: "Down in our village old Cy Addington had a calf he'd entered in the County Fair. He'd set his heart on that calf's winning a prize--all the other farmers had told him it would. It was black as jet with just a little white mark on its fore quarter. He tended that calf like a baby and spent hours at a time getting it all in shape for the Fair. Well, the night before the Fair opened two boys--bad boys they were--stole that calf out of its shed, took it off in some woods where they had a lantern and a can of paint hidden under a log. What do you think they did? Painted the animal white--snow white--every bit of him! Then they took him to the graveyard and tied him to a tombstone!" "Oh, Daddy, how dreadful!" cried Alice. "Then what happened?" demanded Keineth and Peggy in one voice.