“Sweetheart dear,” ran the lines, “I have time for only a word before the mail closes; but I want to tell you that my cousin, Rev. Harrison Savage, is to preach at the Church of the Good Shepherd next Sunday morning. That is so near you—only five blocks away—I am wondering if your mother and Blue wouldn’t like to go and hear him. He is lovely! People call him an unusually talented young man. I know they’d like him. I wish you could go too! If there were wings in this workaday world of ours, I’d fly straight down to The Flatiron Sunday morning, and I’d bring a little pair of wings for you—then we’d flap along to church! Wouldn’t we have a good time! I’m coming to see you some day, wings or no wings! Love—a thousand bushels!
Your own Dolly.”
It wouldn’t do to tell how many times Doodles read the note before Blue came home at noon. Nobody, who hadn’t been a lonely—a very lonely—boy, and who missed his violin playing and his musical comrade as only a real music lover could miss them, would possibly believe the truth. But, then, it was Doodles’s first letter, and the first letter is entitled to a great many more readings than the thousandth one.
Mrs. Stickney shook her head sadly when Blue asked the question that Dolly Moon suggested. She had no dress or coat suitable for appearance in the fashionable church on Bliss Avenue—so she declared, and with such emphasis that neither Blue nor Doodles dared to urge the matter.
Blue’s church-going was limited to attendance at Sunday-school—an attendance more or less regular according to his clothes, and he now decided that he didn’t care much about hearing somebody preach that he never saw, even though he was cousin to Dolly Moon.
During the afternoon, however, Mr. Gaylord dropped in, and his proposal set hearts fluttering and tongues flying. He, too, had received word from Dolly about her cousin, and as his employer, Mrs. Graham, had expressed her desire to spend the coming Sabbath at home he had obtained permission to use her car long enough to take the Stickney family to and from church.
The mother still kept to her first determination, and even the inducement of an automobile ride could not coax it away. But Blue was jubilant, and Doodles too joyful to do much more than to beam silently on everybody, with an occasional little burst of delight.
To ride in Mrs. Graham’s elegant car! To see the grand Bliss Avenue Church, the pride of the city! To listen to a sermon from Dolly Moon’s own cousin! And—perhaps best of all—to hear the much-talked-of “Good Shepherd” choir, the fame of whose wonderful singing extended hundreds of miles away! It was unbelievable! These thoughts—and a myriad others—danced in Doodles’s brain, while Giles Gaylord and Blue chatted of Dolly Moon and gayly arranged such important matters as hours and minutes.
Doodles’s mother looked grave, thinking of the child’s best suit. Made from one of his brother’s, it was shabby from washings and darns; still words would not freshen it, and they were wisely withheld. So the happy plans went on, untouched by anything so commonplace as clothes.
For the rest of the week there were no more lonely hours for Doodles. Every detail of the coming event was pictured over and over by the imaginative boy. His mother and Blue were called upon for frequent and repeated descriptions of churches and church services, for his knowledge of these things was limited to what he could gain from stories and illustrations.