The farmer nodded comprehendingly. “I’ve got a three-year-old that’s a pretty speedy proposition. Ain’t really broken, though. Think you can manage him, son?”
“’Course I can.” In his new-born zeal for atonement, Jerry felt himself equal to the management of an airship. The three-year-old was accordingly interrupted in her breakfast, expressing her dissatisfaction by laying her ears close to her head. And as she was hurriedly saddled, Jerry added, “You’ll get ’em home as soon as you can, won’t you? I guess by their looks they’re pretty near beat out.”
“We sure will.” The farmer cleared his throat, for his deep voice had suddenly grown husky. “Driving the two of ’em home alive and well is a good deal pleasanter job than I’d bargained for this morning. Now look out for this here vixen,” he continued, dropping suddenly from the plane of sentiment to the prosaic levels, “for she’ll throw you if she can.”
And while Peggy was making an effort to eat the breakfast the farmer’s wife insisted on her sharing, a clatter of hoofs under the window told of Jerry’s departure.
CHAPTER XX
HOME SWEET HOME
“Joy cometh in the morning.” At Dolittle Cottage white-faced, sad-hearted girls had crept up-stairs to bed, and some of them had slept and waked moaning, and others had lain wide-eyed and still through the long hours, thankful for the relief of tears which now and then ran down their hot cheeks and wet their pillows. But when the dawn came, nature had its way, and the last watcher fell into the heavy sleep of exhaustion.
Apparently they all waked at once. Down-stairs was a clamor of uplifted voices, strange, choking cries, sounds that almost made the heart stop beating. And then above the tumult, a shrill fretful pipe that to the strained ears of the listeners was the sweetest of all sweet music.
“Make Hobo stop, Aunt Peggy. He’s a-tickling me with his tongue.”
Pandemonium reigned in Dolittle Cottage. There was a wild rush of white-robed figures for the hall, just as a girl in a dress that had once been white, and with dark circles under her eyes, came flying up the stairs. Peggy forgot her aching limbs and weariness in the transport of that moment. And then there was a little time of silence, broken only by the sound of happy sobbing, and everybody was kissing everybody else, without assigning any especial reason, and laughing through glad tears.