“Pooh! ’Course we could. Listen!” And Hezekiah proceeded to unfold his plans more in detail.
It was very early the next morning when the household awoke. By seven o’clock a two-seated carryall was drawn up to the side-door, and by a quarter past the carryall, bearing Jennie, Frank, the boys, and the lunch baskets, rumbled out of the yard and on to the highway.
“Now, keep quiet and don’t get heated, mother,” cautioned Jennie, looking back at the little gray-haired woman standing all alone on the side veranda.
“Find a good cool spot to smoke your pipe in, father,” called Frank, as an old man appeared in the doorway.
There followed a shout, a clatter, and a cloud of dust--then silence. Fifteen minutes later, hand in hand, a little old man and a little old woman walked down the white road together.
To most of the passengers on the trolley-car that day the trip was merely a necessary means to an end; to the old couple on the front seat it was something to be remembered and lived over all their lives. Even at the Junction the spell of unreality was so potent that the man forgot things so trivial as tickets, and marched into the car with head erect and eyes fixed straight ahead.
It was after Hezekiah had taken out the roll of bills--all ones--to pay the fares to the conductor that a young man in a tall hat sauntered down the aisle and dropped into the seat in front.
“Going to Boston, I take it,” said the young man genially.
“Yes, sir,” replied Hezehiah, no less genially. “Ye guessed right the first time.”
Abigail lifted a cautious hand to her hair and her bonnet. So handsome and well-dressed a man would notice the slightest thing awry, she thought.