Here came the cab, indeed, and from the vine-clad mansion on the corner also came a liveried servant bearing a big basket tightly covered.
“With the mistress’ compliments, and Miss Bonny-Gay is sending this to the baby.”
“Good enough!” answered the happy father, and took Mary Jane from the Gray Gentleman’s arms; who handed her crutches in after her, and himself closed the door of the cab with a cheerful snap.
“Some other time, then, Mary Jane, I’ll expect a visit from you. My regards to your mother and I will be down your way before long. Good-by.”
Mary Jane’s head whirled with the strangeness of it all. What a day it had been! And how simple and kind was this gray-haired father, who didn’t look half so strong as her own absent one, but who talked so fast and asked so many questions that, before she at all realized what she was doing, the cripple had given him their whole family history. Save and excepting, of course, anything which related to her own affliction and its cause, or any possible fault of her beloved father.
“He works—I mean, he did work—for the B. & B. railroad folks. He—he—isn’t working just now. He went away, for a little while, but I guess he’s back again. Won’t he be surprised to hear all that’s happened to me? He’ll be glad, after all, that she didn’t—Oh! my sake! what am I saying!”
At mention of the Company, the gentleman beside her had given a little start of surprise, but Mary Jane fancied that the jolting of the cab had moved him. She expressed her regret for the accident and added:
“But I like it. I never rode in a carriage but once before. That was yesterday when Bonny-Gay was hurt. But she’ll soon be well, now, I think. Don’t you?”
“So I trust. So I trust and believe. But, tell me a little further of your father. What sort of work did he do? I happen to know something about that company and am interested in the details of all its concerns.”
“Sometimes he was helping along the tracks; straightening them, changing the ties, and such things. Sometimes he was over at the great sheds they’re building—monstrous ones, they are, almost all of steel. You ought just to see them by daylight. Though I guess I can show them to you even to-night, ’cause they’re not so very far from our house.”