“May I visit with Henry a little while?” asked the boy.
“Well—I—y-es. You may stay there a quarter of an hour.”
“It’s a wonder,” thought Guy, as he picked up his cap and started for Mr. Stewart’s house. “Why didn’t he tell me that home is the place for me after dark? That’s the reply he generally makes.”
As Guy climbed over the fence that ran between his father’s yard and Mr. Stewart’s he heard a great noise and hubbub. He listened and found that the sounds came from the house he was about to visit.
As he drew nearer he saw that one of the window curtains was raised, and that he could obtain a view of all that was going on in Mr. Stewart’s back parlor. The occupants were engaged in a game of blind-man’s buff. Mr. Stewart, his eyes covered with a handkerchief, and his hands spread out before him, was advancing cautiously toward one side of the room, evidently searching for Henry, who had squeezed himself into one corner, with a chair in front of him. The other children were probably trying to divert their father’s attention, for two of them were clinging to his coat-tails, while the eldest daughter would now and then go up and pull his whiskers or pat him on the back. Mrs. Stewart sat in a remote corner sewing and smiling pleasantly, seemingly unmindful of the deafening racket raised by the players.
“Humph!” said Guy, “it will be of no use for me to ask Henry to go with me. I wouldn’t go myself if I had a home like this. How would my father look with a handkerchief over his eyes, and Ned and me hanging to his coat-tails? And wouldn’t mother have an awful headache though, if this was going on in her house?”
It certainly was a pleasant scene that Guy looked in upon, and he stood at the window watching the players until he began to be ashamed of himself. Then he mounted the steps and knocked at the door.
Mrs. Stewart admitted him, and he entered the parlor just in time to see Henry’s father pounce upon him and hold him fast.
“Aha! I’ve caught you, sir,” said Mr. Stewart, with a laugh that did one’s heart good, “and now we had better stop, for we are arousing the neighbors. Here’s Guy come in to see what’s the matter.”
“No, sir,” replied the visitor, “I just came over to return a book and paper I borrowed of Henry.”