“Oh, good enough!” Peggy Pierce exclaimed. “I was just wishing that I was home to help mother get the dinner, and now I will be there in a twinkling.”
“We have our fiery steed,” Adele said, “so Eva and Amanda and I will travel in my little red cart, but thank you, just the same.”
Then, waving good-bye to smiling Miss Grackle, the girls and Bob started down the Dickerson Road on their homeward way.
Meanwhile, in the poorhouse, Mrs. Quigley was hunting in her shabby hair-trunk for a bit of old-time finery. Little, indeed, did she dream of the great joy which was so soon to be hers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A REALLY, TRULY HOME
Promptly at two o’clock Bob Angel and Gertrude Willis arrived at the poorhouse, and on a bench near the gate sat the old couple. How their faces shone when they saw the automobile which was to bear them to the party!
The old lady in bonnet and shawl, and the old man in a well-brushed, though threadbare, coat, and hat, frayed at the edges, arose as Gertrude went forward to greet them. She said afterwards that it was hard for her to keep from throwing her arms about the dear old lady and telling her then and there of the great happiness that was in store for them, but, instead, she kissed the bright, wrinkled face and shook hands with Mr. Quigley, whom she had never met before. Bob had leaped to the ground, and after Gertrude had introduced him to their guests, he carefully helped the old lady to the comfortable back seat and the old man to the front.
Mr. Quigley’s eyes were shining like a boy’s as Bob drove rather slowly down the country road. “Land sakes alive, ma!” he called. “Ain’t this great! Make her go faster, boy. We ain’t a mite afeared.” So Bob put on a bit more speed, and soon they reached the Grackle homestead.
“Well, I swan!” the old man cried when he shook hands with Miss Grackle. “Wonders never will cease, I reckon. If here ain’t Sally Grackle herself, lookin’ younger’n she did when I saw her last.”
Miss Grackle beamed happily as she greeted the Quigleys and led them into the cottage. A moment later Grandpa Dally, as he insisted that every one should call him, arrived in a long-tailed coat which he had first worn at his wedding many years before.