“I am wareing the beyewtifull beeds you sent me around my neck. Aunt M’ri says they are terkwoyses. I never had such nice beeds and I thank you. I wish I cood ride with you agen. Good bye. From your frend,
“Janey.”
CHAPTER VI
The next day being town day, David “hooked up” Old Hundred and drove to the house. After the butter crock, egg pails, and kerosene and gasoline cans had been piled in, Barnabas squeezed into the space beside David. M’ri came out with a memorandum of supplies for them to get in town. To David she handed a big bunch of spicy, pink June roses.
“What shall I do with them?” he asked wonderingly.
“Give them to some one who looks as if he needed flowers,” she replied.
“I will,” declared the boy interestedly. “I will watch them all and see how they look at the roses.”
At last M’ri had a kindred spirit in her household. Jud would have sneered, and Janey would not have understood. To Barnabas all flowers looked alike. 77
It had come to be a custom for Barnabas to take David to town with him at least once a week. The trip was necessarily a slow one, for from almost every farmhouse he received a petition to “do a little errand in town.” As the good nature and accommodating tendency of Barnabas were well known, they were accordingly imposed upon. He received commissions of every character, from the purchase of a corn sheller to the matching of a blue ribbon. He also stopped to pick up a child or two en route to school or to give a lift to a weary pedestrian whom he overtook.