CTOBER had returned, and a letter had come from my friend McCarthy, asking me to visit him. My sister had learned telegraphy at home, and could take and send well enough to do my work at the office. It was arranged, therefore, that she and my mother should close the Mill House and come to town for a week or two, so that she could take my place.
The hand-made gentleman had built his factory in the thriving town of Rushwater, on the Central Railroad. It took a long summer day to get there, for the engine was fed with wood, and we had now and then to load the tender with fuel, corded on the right of way, or drive cattle from the track or water the locomotive or mend a coupling, and had to wait at the junction for trains in equally bad luck.
Early in the evening I found my friend McCarthy at the leading hotel in Rushwater, where he boarded.
“Pleased to see you,” he said, with dignity, as he shook my hand. “Have you been to supper?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Is there any kind of refreshment I can offer you?”
“Nothing except your company.”
He took me to the desk and introduced me as his friend, “Jacob Ezra Heron, Esq., a gentleman from St. Lawrence County.”