He and Sadie had, as it appeared to them, traveled from one end of the Island to the other without seeing any buildings which looked familiar; and when the boy from the country was so weary that it seemed impossible to take another step, he seated himself on the edge of the board walk, saying mournfully:—
“It’s no use, Sadie! We’ll have to give it up for a while. I never was so tired in my life, an’ don’t understand where Bob and Tom can be.”
“They must have gone home, ’cause it wouldn’t seem reasonable we’d be walkin’ ’round all this time without meetin’ ’em. Perhaps they think that’s where we are now.”
“I don’t believe they’d leave us; ’cause you see Bob knows we’d have to buy other tickets, an’ his would be wasted.”
“But he couldn’t stay here all night.”
“He’d hold out a pretty long while before he left us,” Josiah said decidedly, and Sadie ceased all attempts at persuading him her opinion was correct.
“It seems to me as if it had been two days since we had that clam chowder,” the boy said after a few moments of silence. “This runnin’ ’round has made me hungry. S’pose we get somethin’ to eat before huntin’ any more?”
“But remember how much Bob had to pay for dinner! I think after all that money has been spent, we oughter get along a good while without anything else.”
“There wasn’t so very much of it, except the price;” and the thought of what he had eaten caused Josiah to grow more hungry.
There had been so many times in her life when the little match-girl was obliged to get along without either dinner or supper, that she would have been perfectly contented to wait until the boys should be found, or, in fact, dispense with a second meal entirely; but Josiah was not accustomed to anything of the kind, and it seemed a duty which must be performed, regardless of expense.