“If it isn’t Chet—my own son Chet!” he burst out, joyfully. “I was just wishing with all my heart that I knew where you were.” And he shook hands over and over again.
“And I’ve been hurrying to you as fast as I could for weeks,” answered Chet, with a glad look in his eyes. “I heard you were at our cabin, and was going there.”
“I was there, and came here to ask Mr. Graham about you,” answered Tolney Greene.
Josiah Graham had come to the door, holding in his hand a frying pan containing bacon. He gave one look at the newcomers.
“Andy!” he burst out, and in his amazement let the frying pan clatter to the doorstep, scattering the strips of bacon in all directions. “Is it really you, or your ghost?”
“No ghost about me, Uncle Si,” answered the boy. “They tell me you have gone to work.”
“Why, er—ye-as, I have a job at the sawmill.”
“I am glad to know it.”
“I—er—I got over my sickness, an’ so I’m a-goin’ to work stiddy after this,” went on Josiah Graham, lamely.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a year.”