“I’m glad. I like tents better’n houses.”
“You wouldn’t in the winter,” laughed Desiré. “I’ll miss Prissy. The wagon will seem big for me after last year.”
“Are we goin’ to give Simon the horses and wagon?” inquired René in alarm, a new thought suddenly occurring to him.
“We’re going to give them back to him,” said Jack. “They belong to him, you know. He only lent them to us.”
“Oh! Oh! But I never can walk all the way back again,” he wailed.
“Stop crying,” ordered Jack; “and you won’t have to walk all the way back. You cry altogether too much. You’re getting to be too big a boy to act like a baby; you must learn to act like a man.”
“We’re going back on the train, darling,” said Desiré softly. Somehow she liked to think of René as a baby rather than as a “man.”
“On a train!” squealed René. “I’m awful glad I came.”
The weather stayed pleasant, and no accidents of any kind befell the Wistmores on their journey to Yarmouth; it seemed strangely uneventful by contrast with the trip up the preceding summer. They had decided that it was best to forego the pleasure of calling on old friends, even those in Sissiboo, and get on to Yarmouth just as quickly as possible. It was after dark when they passed their old home. René was asleep, and Jack and Desiré gazed at the familiar outlines in silence. The windows showed squares of yellow light, and a few sparks floated out of the chimney. Those were the only signs of life about the place; in fact the whole town was deserted. All the people seemed to have withdrawn to their homes for the night.
Shortly before noon one warm day they stopped in front of Mrs. Chaisson’s house in Yarmouth. Before they had a chance to get out, old Simon himself came hurrying out from the back yard.