Helen and her aunt were much amused that Randy could answer so readily a remark which was intended to embarrass her, and they realized that Randy's frankness in admitting herself a country girl quite unused to city pleasures, would disarm a girl like Polly, more successfully than any amount of artifice or pretense. CHAPTER IX A SCOTCH LINNET The sky was a cold, leaden gray, and down from the mountains swept a pitiless wind, which whistled through the bare branches of the trees and tossed a few dried leaves before it, as it hurried on as if with a fixed determination to reach every corner of the village and chill everything which it could touch. It leveled the few standing cornstalks and caused the dry twigs to rap a tattoo upon the windows of the farm houses. It attacked the shivering form of a lonely little cur who took his tail between his legs and scurried away down the road in search of some sheltering barn or shed; it nipped little Hi Babson's ears and snatching his cap, tossed it over the wall and across the field where it lay, held fast in a clump of bushes. Hi secured the cap, and as he pulled it down about his ears he looked back in the direction from which the gust had blown, and shaking his little fist exclaimed, "Nasty old wind! I hate ye and ye know it. 'F I'd a been 'lowed ter stay home an' whittle like I wanted ter, I wouldn't a lost my cap. I scratched my fingers gittin' it, an' _that_ makes me mad." Again he shook his little fist at his enemy, the wind, but as it did not cease blowing, he drew on his mittens and sulkily plodded on toward school. His cold fingers smarted where the briers had torn them, and he felt resentful that he should be on his way toward the despised school house, quite forgetting that by the fireside with his beloved whittling he usually managed to cut his fingers. Whistling lustily, Jack Marvin came down the road, overtaking Hi as he stumbled along, a most disconsolate little figure. "Hello, Hi," said Jack. "Why, look here little feller," as he noticed tears in the bright black eyes. "'Most frozen, and didn't want ter come ter school, either? Say, gimme yer hand, mine are warm, an' you'n me'll be in school in no time. What's that? Ain't done yer sums? Well, now, little chap, you jist come along quick, an' 'fore ye know it ye'll be gittin' warm in the school room an' I'll show ye 'bout yer sums 'fore the bell rings. My, but it takes you'n me ter make good time over the road!" Jack Marvin never could bear to see a child in tears, and his kind heart was delighted when little Hi skipped along beside him, laughing gaily, in spite of the traces of tears upon his cheeks. Hi looked up to Jack as one of the best among the "big boys," and to race along beside him and be assured of help with his lessons, took every care from the little fellow's mind, and he laughed and whistled in company with Jack.