For three days peace—comparative peace—reigned in the household. From morning till night, in season and out of season, Charlie was busy with his horse, astride of it, or feeding it, or leading it to water, or punishing it for imaginary kicks and bites, and so keeping out of mischief; but with the dawn of the fourth he awoke, apparently for the first time, to a realization of the fact that he was not lying in his own little bed, and a sudden flood of homesickness rolled over his soul, drowning out rocking-horse, hand-organs, Tom’s music-box, and each and every Bostonian delight which, until that moment, had led him captive.
From that moment his mourning was as incessant and obstinate as that of Rachael. He sat on the top stair, and filled the house with wailings. Cakes, candy and coaxings were alike in vain, and even a desperate promise of Tom’s—to show him a whole drove of elephants, had no more effect upon him, to use the cook’s simile, “than the wind that blows.”
“No human being can endure it any longer,” declared grandma, and in that statement every member of the household cordially agreed.
That fact having been established without discussion, but one thing remained to do; to get him home in as good condition as when he left there.
“One can hardly do that,” said Tom. “He’s got a rag on every finger but one, and I don’t know how much court-plaster about him.”
Notwithstanding, the afternoon train saw Charlie on board, under the double guardianship of Aunt Mary and Tom, and at five o’clock he was in his mother’s arms.
“The silence in the house was a thousand times worse than the sound of his little feet,” she said, with her eyes full of tears, “and made me think of that possible time when I should never hear them any more.”
Johnny’s a drummer and drums for thᵉ King.
MDC*VII