Meredith Starr and his chum, Jinks, were under an old apple-tree in the garden orchard, and Ned joined them.
"Aunt Selina's at the house, and what do you think?"
Meredith and Jinks shook their heads and Ned continued solemnly, "She's given Happy Hills to the Blue Birds for their poor children next summer."
"She has! My goodness, but they will have more than they can look after if they ever accepted such a place," cried Jinks.
"Oh, they accepted it, all right! They're just crazy about it. But the grown-ups will have to help it along. I suppose they'll have to have so much printing done that we'll be out of it after this winter," complained Ned.
"If you think that why can't we have some organization of our own?" asked Meredith.
"Yes! why wait to be invited out of the way by the Blue Birds? Get some club of our own going, and surprise them if they find us in the way," added Jinks.
"Oh, it takes a grown-up to help along such things?" objected Ned. "Why, where do you suppose these girls would have been if it hadn't been for mother's ideas and help?"
"I guess you're right," admitted the other boys, rolling over in the grass again, whence they had popped up their heads at Meredith's suggestion.
After a few moments' silence, however, Meredith sat up again and said tenaciously: "I don't see why we can't! Daddum would help us with his advice and your father, too, Ned. Jinks hasn't any grown-ups, but he can get some of the fathers of the Blue Birds interested in us."
"What could we do, or where would we start?" asked Ned.
"Well, first of all, don't let's call it 'The Owls!' That name may be all right for the editor of a paper, but I don't like it for a club," complained Meredith.
"We need a name that will sound so respectable that every mother will consent to having her boy join us," said Ned.
"We might call it 'Junior Boy Scouts,'" suggested Jinks.
"Then everyone'll expect us to do just as the Boy Scouts do, and the fact is we won't! We will have a sort of club for boys under twelve for the purpose of having a nice time, and helping them with their work or suggesting plans for outdoor sports," said Ned.
"If we could think of some name that would appeal to the mothers who are so interested in the Blue Birds!" said Jinks.