How proud he was of Mark and me! He never stopped talking about us and what we did and making poems about it. One of the poems I remember. It said:
“Oh, Binney Jenks and Marcus Tidd,
It beats the dickens what you did!”
Now, isn’t that a dandy compliment?
Well, when everything was settled we said good-by to Mr. Macmillan and to Collins and Jiggins. They had got over their disappointment and were quite pleasant again. They came down to the depot to see us off, and Jiggins gave both of us a jack-knife. They were dandies, too, with a corkscrew, a hammer, a saw, a glass-cutter, a file, and lots of other tools in them.
We shook hands all around, and somehow I was sorry to see the last of them. They were the pleasantest enemies in the world. Then the train started off, and we were on our way to Baldwin again.
My! but Tallow and Plunk were glad to see us, and Martha and Mary were so tickled to see Uncle Hieronymous they almost scared him to death. He hired a man to go and drive Alfred back from the farm where he’d left him.
We boys stayed with him a whole month, and I want to tell you we had the best time ever. It was a lot better than it would have been, because all the while we were so glad we had helped to make Uncle Hieronymous rich.
At last we had to start for home, and uncle drove us to the train behind Alfred. He was most crying when he said good-by, but he promised to come and see us a long time next winter. The last thing he said was a poem.
“I do admire Marcus Tidd.