“Come down to-morrow, David, and we’ll go fishing.”
“All right. Thank you, sir.”
With heart as light as air, David sped through the woods. He had found his Hero. 28
CHAPTER II
David struck out from the shelter of the woodland and made his way to his home, a pathetically small, rudely constructed house. The patch of land supposed to be a garden, and in proportion to the dimensions of the building, showed a few feeble efforts at vegetation. It was not positively known that the Widow Dunne had a clear title to her homestead, but one would as soon think of foreclosing a mortgage on a playhouse, or taking a nest from a bird, as to press any claim on this fallow fragment in the midst of prosperous farmlands.
Some discouraged looking fowls picked at the scant grass, a lean cow switched a lackadaisical tail, and in a pen a pig grunted his discontent.
David went into the little kitchen, where a woman was bending wearily over a washtub.
“Mother,” cried the boy in dismay, “you said you’d let the washing go till to-morrow. That’s why I didn’t come right back.” 29
She paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment and wrung the suds from her tired and swollen hands.
“I felt better, David, and I thought I’d get them ready for you to hang out.”