“Just like her! She’s a generous little thing. Tell me more about her.”
“There isn’t much. She works in the knitting mill. She likes Caruso—my Caruso. I wish he was here to sing for you; but he’s at the bird doctor’s having his wing mended. It hung down dreadfully, and the bird doctor is going to fix it so it’ll be as good as new. Blue went up there last week to see how he’s getting along, and he’s ’most well. He sings ‘Annie Laurie’—just think! Seem’s if I couldn’t wait to hear him sing that!” Doodles gave a vivid account of the bird’s sudden recollection of the tune, drifting into the story of the robbery and Thomas Fitzpatrick’s part in the exciting little affair. The first noon whistle brought him to a halt.
“That’s five minutes of twelve,” he announced. “Our clock is too slow. Dolly’ll be here pretty soon now—in about ten minutes, I guess.”
Talk flagged after that, although Doodles tried to keep up a show of it. It is doubtful whether the old man heard much of what was said; his thin fingers drummed restlessly on the arms of the rocker, and at every sound he glanced towards the doorway.
“We shall hear her coming up,” Doodles told him; “I always do. ’Tisn’t quite time—most though. Mother doesn’t—” he stopped, listening, then nodded gleefully. “Hear her? She’s on the first flight.”
The old man shook his head; his ears were not keen enough to catch that soft footfall. Quickly, however, his face brightened.
“Won’t she be astonished!” the boy whispered.
The girl smiled a gay answer to Doodles’s greeting, and was starting over the threshold when she spied the foot and trousers-leg of a man, and retreated.
“No, no! don’t go!” cried Doodles. “Please come in just a minute, Dolly dear!”
As she advanced, the occupant of the rocking-chair turned toward her. She flashed one glance at that wrinkled face, and darted forward with a glad, “Grandpa! grandpa!”