“Wal,” exclaimed Mrs. Homan, as the boy dashed in, “I s’pose yer’ll be such a big bug now ’t yer won’t think of ’sociatin’ with th’ rest of us!” Her little shrill laugh rang through the room.
Granny rose to her feet, and grasped Blue’s hand before he had time to answer.
“It’s glad I be f’r ye, glad as if ye was me own b’y!”
“Then it’s really true?” he queried.
“My, yes, true as sundown!” giggled Mrs. Homan. “I don’t wonder yer can’t b’lieve it. It’s just like things happen in books. ‘Land!’ I says, the minute I heard of it, ‘won’t that be s’lendid for the Stickneys! To think of havin’ a Rockefeller right here in The Flatiron!’”
Blue gave a bit of a chuckle, and went over to Doodles.
“Feelin’ all right, old man?”
A smiling, comprehensive nod contented him, and throwing a leg across the corner of the table he sat and answered Mrs. Homan’s questions, while he swept occasional glances round the room, glances which included the clock, and wished that the hour would hurry his curious visitor home.
It did at last, and Granny also; but he and Doodles had scarcely more than begun to exchange wonderings about what was foremost in their minds when Mrs. Homan ran up the stairs with a little apple pie.
“I says when I was makin’ it, I did n’ know what in th’ world I sh’d do with ’t, for Jud ain’t on speakin’ terms ’ith apple pie, an’ they’s on’y me ’n pa to ’nihilate ’em. But there was th’ crust, so I flung it together, ’n’ when I see ’t just now I says, ‘That’s who I made it for—th’ Stickneys! They’s ’nough f’r their supper, ’n’ ’t’ll jibe right in ’ith th’ fun. I’ll trot it straight up to ’em.’ No, land, don’t oust it off th’ plate now! I got ’nough dishes. Bye-bye again!”