“Up on the Bowery somewhere,” Tom explained. “It’s time for her to ’tend to business, an’ she ’lowed she’d better leave, ’cause we wouldn’t want a girl hangin’ ’round.”
“But we would;” and Master Shindle spoke very decidedly. “She’s been mighty good to me, an’ I want to tell her I won’t forget it.”
“You’ll have plenty of chance to do that. Just now we’ve got to go right up to the house an’ straighten things out. When you didn’t come yesterday, mother thought you wouldn’t be here at all, an’ we must tell her how it happened.”
“Besides, you don’t want to lug that valise ’round town,” Bob added, “’cause we’re goin’ to put you through this city in great shape, an’ can’t be bothered with a lot of baggage.”
Although the boys appeared so eager to go home, it was fully ten minutes before Josiah could answer all the questions asked by them.
They wanted to know how the calf had thriven since their visit to the farm, inquired particularly concerning Towser, and were eager to learn what would be the prospect for a good crop of turtles next spring.
When Master Shindle had satisfied their curiosity regarding every animal on the farm, Tom asked with mild solicitude after Mr. and Mrs. Shindle.
The visitor was also called upon to tell how many days he had spent weeding carrots, if the harvest had been plentiful, and whether woodchucks allowed themselves to be killed as readily as Josiah had intimated during the previous summer.
Then he in turn learned all that could be told in a brief way regarding the twins and Jimmy, and the benefit resulting from their visit to Berry’s Corner.
“It seems like as if they’d kept right on growin’ fat jest thinkin’ of the farm,” Tom said. “Bob an’ me promised they should go out agin before the cold weather came, but business was dull, an’ we couldn’t scrape up cash enough to pay the fares. We’re comin’ next summer, though. How many woodchucks did you kill?”