Everyone thought he was very clever to have guessed a very difficult and obscure word in five questions. "Nan's turn again! That isn't fair when Skeeter really and truly was the one who got him going. You've got to go, Skeeter," and Frank and Lil and Lucy pounced on their chum and dragged him from the tree. "Yes, I haven't! I'd never guess c-a-t. Get somebody else." "I'll go," Mr. Tucker volunteered magnanimously. "Let him; he's dying to!" exclaimed the twins in one breath. "Well, don't tweedle!" commanded their father. He always called it tweedling when his twins spoke the same thing at the same time. A word was hard to hit on because as his daughters said Mr. Tucker had what men call feminine intuition. "You can't keep a thing from him," Dum said. "And sometimes he sees something before it happens," declared Dee. "Oh, spooks!" laughed Page. "'Spooks' would be a good word," suggested someone, but Mrs. Carter had a word which was finally determined on. Zebedee was whistled for and came quickly to the front. "Mr. Smith, tell me, while flying through the air would you like to have one of these teakettles with you? I mean would it be the kind of thing you could carry with you? Would it be of any value on the journey?" "We--el, I can't say that a teakettle would be of any great practical value on a flight, but it would certainly be great to have one. I believe I'd rather have one than anything I can think of. In fact, I mean to take one with me some day." Mr. Tucker looked into the glowing countenance of the young birdman. He saw there youth, character, romance. "A 'teakettle' is a 'sweetheart,'" he said simply. "Talking about spooks--what do you know about that?" cried one of the crowd. "Well, what did I tell you? Didn't I say you couldn't keep anything from Zebedee?" said triumphant Dee. "I betcher I ain't a-gonter take no sweetheart with me when I gits me a arryplane," shouted Bobby from his vantage ground. "I'm a-gonter take Josh and Josephus, ander--ander--father." The picnic in the tree had been a decided success. It was one more perfect day for the week-enders to report as worth while to the possible future boarders. Even Mr. Parker was enthusiastic, although he was not as a rule much of an outdoor man. He was conscious of the fact that he shone in a drawing room, and under the "great eye of Heaven" did not amount to quite so much as he did under electric lights with pink shades. CHAPTER XIV THE FORAGERS "Miss Douglas, them week-enders done cl'ared the coop. Thain't nary chicken lef' standin' on a laig. Looks like these here Hungarians don't think no mo' of 'vourin' a chicken than a turkey does of gobblin' up a grasshopper." "All of them gone, Oscar?" "Yas'm! Thain't hide or har of them lef'. If I hadn't er wrung they necks myself, I would er thought somethin's been a-ketchin' 'em; but land's sakes, the way these week-enders do eat chicken is a caution!"