Mrs. Stickney brought it, with the coat which Blue had outgrown.
“I don’t see how you’re going to manage,”—the mother was tucking a handkerchief about the small boy’s neck,—“I’m afraid he’s too heavy for either of you.” She glanced from one to the other.
“Oh, I could to carry him in mine arms!” declared Joseph valiantly.
“But we’re going to make a lady-chair, and take him that way,” put in Blue.
And so they did, the mother watching, a bit anxious, from the top of the stairs, and Granny O’Donnell, in her door, cheering the little procession.
The walk from The Flatiron to The Church of the Good Shepherd was accomplished without serious mishap. Once Doodles slipped, and, righting him, Blue lost his hat; but a stranger returned it to his head, and the trio went on again.
“I could to carry him mineself,” observed Joseph.
“Guess you’d better not,” Blue advised. “I tried it last summer,—took him down to the Settlement for a concert,—I didn’t dare risk it again. It was an awful tug! Mother carried him out a little way, one night, just to get the air; but she had to ask Mr. Schloss to take him upstairs—she was all in!”
“I could to carry him,” Joseph reiterated, “sooner you gets tired.”
But Blue would not confess to fatigue, and at last the church was gained.