Bob did as his friend suggested; and the possibility that he might lose the opportunity of seeing this exhibition, of which he had read and heard so much, caused Mr. Shindle to accelerate his pace, greatly to the delight of his guides.
The old gentleman walked rapidly several moments, and then they had arrived in front of a toy-store.
Here he came to a full halt; and it is questionable if even a genuine alarm of fire would have caused him to move on, unless, by chance, the engine had passed within sight.
He appeared to take as much pleasure in looking at the toy soldiers, dolls, and miniature base-ball outfits as did Josiah; and the two flattened their noses against the window in blissful ignorance of the amusement they were affording the spectators.
Mr. Shindle compared the toys with such as he had owned when he was a child, and speculated with Josiah as to what he would buy for Sadie if he was possessed of unlimited means, until one would have found it difficult, judging simply from the conversation, to say which was the elder of the two.
“I reckon your mother would go jest about wild if she was to see a thing like this,” Mr. Shindle said, when Bob had tried in vain several moments to induce him to continue the journey up town.
“I wish you’d brought her with you,” Josiah replied. “You can’t think how many things I’ve seen that I knew both she an’ you’d like, since I’ve been here, an’ it seemed too bad we couldn’t all have been together.”
“I did ask her if she wouldn’t come down; but she’s forever thinkin’ about how much the railroad ticket costs; an’ while I don’t want to make any complaint against your mother, Josiah, I must say she’s a master hand at figgerin’ how many cents there are in a dollar, so I don’t know as we’ve got any call to blame her. You see, for a good many years we had an up-hill row to hoe, an’ she’s buckled down to it so long, that now when we’re a little fore-handed, she can’t get free of them ways of scrimpin’.”
In due course of time, Bob’s and Tom’s efforts were rewarded with success, and the little party moved on, slowly to be sure, but, as Bob said, they were “headin’ the right way,” and it was only a question of an hour or more when they would arrive at their destination.
Bill Foss could not have been more jaunty in his manner, even when making his best efforts to do honor to Josiah in order to pave the way for the summer’s visit, than was Mr. Shindle when he stepped in front of the ticket-office at the “wax-figure show,” and purchased the cards of admission.