“It is fun being happy,” he asserted gnomically.
“It is—it is,” she agreed, with conviction equal to his own.
“I think I have learned how to be happy more from you, ’Lores, than from Dick. But I don’t mind acknowledging that I was all wrong about the way I treated him before you came. Don’t you think he ’preciates, though, that I’ve tried to make it up to him? The way he pecks around my fingers when I hold his lettuce-leaf shows he’s not afraid of me any more. And the way he sings! ’Lores, when he perks his head on one side, just like John and me, and fixes his shiny eyes on mine—— D’you know, I think he is awful fond of me, ’spite of the way I acted. It makes me feel——” In the act of drooping, the over-large, brown-cropped head threw bravely back. “It makes me ashamed,” he finished. “Don’t you suppose we could let Dick out of the cage a while each day, just to give him a little the feeling that he’s free?”
“Of course we could, Jackie. I am sure he’d soon learn to stay inside your rooms. He has more philosophy than you’d credit to his size or he’d never sing as he does in a cage.”
The lad’s eyes up-flashed a radiant look. “I’d be relieved a lot to see Dick get something out of his life. I’d feel a better right to enjoy something awful wonderful that’s going to happen to me to-day. You won’t be cross that I’ve kept it a secret from you? I wanted to s’prise you. But I intended all along to tell you first of anybody. ’Lores——”
His slithering gait stopped in the center of the path that he might grasp her two hands instead of the one. Through the fur lining of his gloves she could feel the jump of his pulse. Looking down, she saw a sort of solemn joy upon his wizened little face. From under the beautiful sweep of his lashes gleamed what she had not seen there before, tears.
“John’s going to bring me the dog, ’Lores,” he announced in a voice surcharged with unchildlike feeling. “I never asked him again after that day. You know—the day you came—when two of the gold-fish died? It was he took that magazine with the kennel advertisement I had marked. You remember that we never could find it? That was a long time ago and I was afraid John had forgotten. But he hadn’t. I guess he never forgets anything. He saved the address and he’s got me one of the breed of that picture. It means more to me than getting what he’s never let me have, a live puppy. It means——”
“That your father trusts you now. Oh, Jack darling, I am so glad for you!” With emotion equal to his own Dolores filled in when the child-voice broke.
“And, ’Lores——” excitement fortified him, “he’s bringing it to-day—probably this very hour. I left word with Bradish the direction we were taking and just where we’d rest. But I guess, after all, we’d better go back. My dog mightn’t like it if I wasn’t home when he arrived. Naturally he’ll be anxious to get acquainted with his boy. Let’s start back.”
Despite Dolores’ readiness, he still hesitated.