Then he described to her his home at Berry’s Corner; told her of Towser and the pet calf, until once more the sickness for home assailed him.
The sight of the food, however, had a beneficial effect upon his mind; and in a very short time the vision of the Shindle Farm had faded away in the distance, leaving before him the pleasing knowledge that he was hungry, and had plenty with which to satisfy that desire.
To Sadie the half-hour spent in the restaurant was one of unalloyed pleasure. She thought everything around her was magnificent, and fancied that in no other place could food be prepared in such an inviting and appetizing manner.
“There!” she said as she ate the last kernel of rice which had helped to make up the pudding, and the meal was at an end, “Now I don’t care what Mother Hunter says. I ain’t hungry any more, an’ it don’t seem as if I ever will be agin. What a lucky thing for me you happened to come along, an’ wanted to find your chums. I expect I’ll be waitin’ ’round here every night hopin’ to see somebody from Berry’s Corner, so’s to have such an awful good time as we’ve had.”
To Josiah the supper had not been particularly appetizing, owing to the fact that he was contrasting the food with that prepared by his mother, and the result was decidedly in favor of the meals at the Shindle Farm.
It made him very comfortable in mind that he had been able to give the little match-girl so much pleasure, however; and, after emerging from the restaurant to where the gaudy lights of the dime museum could be seen, another brilliant scheme entered his mind.
“Say, how much do they charge to go in there?” he asked.
“Ten cents.”
“Then we’ll go.”
“That will make half a dollar you’ve spent since you saw me, an’ it’s too much for one day,” Sadie said in a whisper, as if the enormous amount terrified her.