They filled the room with shouts and cheering when Teddy finished his speech, and Willie waved a big handkerchief and shouted, “God save the King”; and then Mother, Dad and Miss Gibson came in, and Teddo’s health was drunk in lemon syrup by all. After some more talking, he bade them all good-bye, and rode through the silver moonlight away through the frosty air under the sparkling stars of the winter’s night. The children’s voices followed him, singing “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” “Good-bye, Sydney Town,” and any other songs that came to their minds at the time; and after each song there would be “Three cheers for Teddo.”
So Teddo started the first stage of his journey that took him away among strangers in the big State of Queensland, and his little bush friends would not see him again for many years to come. But as they grew up they all retained memories of the kindly red-headed Teddo, and from time to time a very carefully-written letter would come from him from some far-off town with a most outlandish name, and many a time the map of Queensland was searched to find “where Teddo was now”; and, though other mailmen came and went, there was never another such as Teddo on the line.
“A letter had come for Willie from his Mother.”
CHAPTER XXI.
INTERCESSION.
A letter had come for Willie from his mother, saying that he really must come home; he ought to be satisfied now, and they missed him very much, and he really must return to school, and ever so many more reasons why he should come home. Willie felt very downhearted.
“’Course I’d like to see them again, and I think a terrible lot of them, and all that, but I do want to stay longer. I asked Mamma ever so long ago to let me stay till November, and she nearly promised she would, but a woman never can keep her word,” he went on, dashing away a tear.
“We’ll write and beg and beg for you,” said Eva.
“Will you? Good! Write and say you can’t part with me, that I’m a—a—a real decent chap, and say—oh, say anything at all you like, only do get her to let me stay till November. Say it’s a long way up here, and it’s no use coming for a little while. Let’s see—how long have I been here now? About seven months—well, say that a person ought to stay nine or ten months, but that I’ll be real satisfied to go home in November, and to be sure and let me stay till then.”
“Yes, we’ll say all that and a lot more.”