“There’ll be plenty of chances for that when we have nothin’ else to do. We’ll skin up ’round Broadway, an’ then go home, for it’ll be pretty near supper time when we get there.”
“Well, I don’t want to make any mistake about seein’ her agin, ’cause I ain’t really squared up for the way she treated me; an’, besides, I’d like to be certain she’s havin’ as good a time as I am, for, ’cordin’ to the looks of things, she gets it pretty tough.”
“That’s a fact,” Bob replied. “It must come kinder hard on anybody what has to live with Mother Hunter; but I reckon she’s got used to it. Anyhow, you shall see her to-morrow if that’ll do any good.”
“An’ will you take her with us to some of the places if I pay the bills?”
“Yes,” Bob replied slowly, but in a tone of indecision, “I s’pose we can fix it somehow;” and with this rather unwilling promise the subject was dropped for the time being.
It was so difficult to tear Master Shindle away from the shop windows that the evening meal had been ready nearly an hour when they finally arrived at Baker’s Court.
In the stuffy little kitchen, which also served as a dining-room, Josiah had once more an opportunity of comparing his home with this, and for at least the tenth time decided that life in the city was entirely different from what it had been pictured by some of his acquaintances at Berry’s Corner.
Instead of an accompaniment to the meal by a bird orchestra, they had the rumble and clatter of carts in the street; in lieu of the perfume of flowers which swept through his mother’s quaint kitchen, was an unpleasant odor from the court, and he ceased to wonder that the beneficiaries of the Fresh Air Fund found the farm such a pleasant abiding place.
There was but little opportunity for reflection on this subject, however. The meal was eaten hurriedly that they might arrive at the place of entertainment before the doors were opened, in order to make certain of obtaining front seats, therefore not a moment was wasted.
Josiah’s remembrance of this visit is not altogether pleasant.