“Yes, I’ll take you home,” he said to Mary and Johnny and Tommy. “Come along.”
“Oh, must you really go?” asked the poor woman. “I wish, after you have been so kind to us, that you could stay and have some of this lovely turkey dinner.”
“Yes, do stay!” cried all the poor children together, like a lot of twins, you know, only, of course, they weren’t.
“Oh, thank you,” said Mary, politely, “we have had our dinner, and really we must get back home before dark, or mamma and papa will worry about us. We shouldn’t have come out, only it was a special, extra-extraordinary occasion, like the time of the dancing bears, and the pink cow, otherwise we never would have come out.”
“Well, let’s start if we’re going to,” said Tommy. So they all said good-by to the poor family, and went out into the street, Mary holding the grocery boy’s right hand, and Tommy his left hand, and Johnny held hold of Mary’s other hand, so they all had hold of hands, you see.
“Now which way had we better go?” asked the grocery boy, when they stood out on the sidewalk.
“Oh, the shortest way,” said Mary. “We want to get home as soon as we can.”
“Well, I think that would be a good plan,” spoke the grocery boy, “so if you will show me the shortest way to your house, we’ll take it.”
“Why, don’t you know the shortest way?” asked Mary.
“No,” answered the grocery boy, “I can’t say that I do. You see, I haven’t lived in this part of the city very long, and I don’t know my way about very well. So you can easily see that I don’t know the shortest way to your house.”