“I’ll tell you how we’ll fix it,” Josiah replied after a short pause. “I was countin’ on takin’ you fellers an’ Sadie up to that dime museum, an’ we’ll use this money for the fares.”
“When are you goin’?” Tom asked.
“Any time you say.”
“Then we’d better wait till near noon, ’cause they have a regular show there, an’ we don’t want to go in before it begins. S’posen Tom an’ me go down town a while after breakfast, an’ you stay with Sadie? We oughter look out for our business a little, an’, besides, I’d like to hear what Bill Foss has got to say for himself this mornin’.”
Josiah was perfectly willing to be left behind, for he had traveled around the city so much that he was thoroughly tired; and as soon as breakfast had been eaten, the young merchants set out, while Josiah walked leisurely toward Mother Hunter’s with the match-girl, who thought it safest to explain, as soon as possible, the cause of her absence during the previous night, lest the old woman should be angry.
On this occasion Josiah did not go into the house. Sadie believed it might be better for him to wait on the outside until she concluded the business; and on her return, after an absence of not more than five minutes, he asked:—
“What did she say?”
“Not very much; ’cause I told her I wouldn’t stay with her another day when I saw she was startin’ to get into a tantrum, an’ that kind of stopped her. Oh, dear,” she added with a long-drawn sigh, “it must be nice to have a home like real folks, same’s as Tom an’ Bob have got. They tell me yours beats theirs all out an’ out.”
“Well, I think myself it’s pleasanter,” Josiah replied, not wishing to say anything disparaging of his friends’ home, and yet eager that the Shindle Farm should be given all the praise it deserved. “You see, there’s more room in the country, an’ folks ain’t packed so close together, besides, a feller can do what he wants to without bein’ afraid of gettin’ lost.”
“I’d like to see the country once, the grass, an’ the cows, an’ the butter, an’ milk.”