The boys were more pleased with the arrangement than they could explain in words. But Phil tried to thank Mr. Kennedy, ending by saying, “I don’t know why you should take so much trouble for us, sir, as we’re complete strangers to you.”
“You don’t know why?” asked the merchant, with smiles rippling over his face. “Well, let me tell you that the man you rescued from a horrible death up there in the Tallahatchie swamp is my brother-in-law, the woman you saved is my sister, and the children my nephew and nieces. Now you will understand that whatever you happen to want in New Orleans is yours, if I know of your wanting it. We should all be more than glad to do vastly more for such good friends as you if we could. But my brother-in-law writes me that he talked with you about that, and concluded that boys of your sort are likely to do much better for themselves than anybody can do for them. Now, not a word more on that subject, please,” as Ed, with his big eyes full of tears, arose, intending to say something of his own and his comrades’ feelings. “Not a word more. Besides, there’s a clerk waiting for me at the door. Go to the opera to-night, and hear some good music. One of my clerks will leave tickets at the hotel for you. And be ready at noon to-morrow for a drive. I’ll call for you, and show you our town. Good-by now, good-by—really, I mustn’t talk longer. Good-by.”
And so the overwhelmed youngsters found themselves bowed out into Camp Street without a chance to say a word of thanks.
The next day, in two open carriages, Mr. Kennedy drove the boys for hours over the beautiful and picturesque old city—up into the Carrollton district, where are fine residences and broad streets; down through the French Creole region, where the quaintness of the city is something wholly unmatched in any other town in America; and out over a beautiful road to Lake Pontchartrain, with luncheon at the Halfway House.
“This will be enough for to-day,” said their host, as they rose from their meal. “To-morrow morning, if you young gentlemen like, we’ll drive down to the battlefield, where Jackson won his famous victory and saved the Mississippi River and all the region west of it from British control. We’ll drive into the city now, and you would do well to rest this afternoon, for driving in this crisp autumn air makes one tired and sleepy.”
The boys protested that he was unwarrantably taking his time for their entertainment, but he had a way of turning off such things with a laugh which left nothing else to be said.
So the trip to the battlefield was made, but this time they had a second companion in the person of a young professor from Tulane University, whom Mr. Kennedy had pressed into service to explain the battlefield and all the events connected with it.
On the following day Mr. Kennedy took his young friends down the river on a little steamer, on board which they passed a night and two days, seeing the forts and hearing from the professor the story of the part they had played in Farragut’s celebrated river fight, and visiting the jetties—those stupendous engineering works by which the government deepened the mouth of the river so as to permit large ships to come up to the city.
On the way back from this two days’ trip Mr. Kennedy invited the boys to dine with him at his home on the next evening. With a queer smile upon his lips, he said:—