Opening the lid Bob saw a small green snake, which lifted its head and gazed around inquiringly, as if asking why it had been thus suddenly transported from its home to a place where there was no opportunity of hiding.
Bob thanked his friend for the gift, but looked so longingly toward the turtle that Master Shindle hastened to say:—
“If you’d rather have one of them I can catch more’n a thousand when I get home agin; but seein’s how they’re apt to bite babies, an’ you’ve got the twins an’ Jimmy ’round, I didn’t know as it would do to fetch two.”
“If you’ll send ’em down, I’ll pay the freight,” Bob replied; and Josiah promised that on the day following his return home he would capture as many turtles as his friends might desire.
Then he displayed the gifts intended for the twins and Jimmy,—two last-year’s bird’s nests, a large supply of horse-hair as materials for rings and chains, and a collection of hedge-hog quills which his mother had dyed in various colors.
After these had been inspected and duly admired, the boys continued on their way to the court, walking very slowly because of Josiah’s desire to stop and look at everything around him.
More than once his exclamations of surprise attracted a crowd of newsboys and boot-blacks; but Tom and Bob were careful to prevent him from being annoyed by these young gentlemen, who considered a stranger from the country a fair target for their supposed wit, and Josiah continued slowly on, ignorant of the fact that he was affording others quite as much amusement as he received from the novel scenes.
Under ordinary circumstances, Tom and Bob could have walked from Chatham Square to their home in ten minutes; but on this day it was fully an hour before they arrived at the court, although both hurried Josiah as much as possible by promising to show him all these things and many more, later in the day.
On entering the court Master Shindle looked about him in dismay; and Bob, quick to note the change in the expression of his friend’s face, said with a laugh:—
“Doesn’t seem much like the farm, eh? I told you one week in a place like this would be enough. If you had always lived here, it wouldn’t look so dirty; but you’d be as wild as we were to see the country.”