This fact, together with the weariness of body caused by long searching for his friends, detracted from his pleasant memories of the forenoon; and when the boat finally arrived at the pier, Josiah actually regretted that the following day was not Saturday instead of Friday.
Sadie was not a particularly cheerful companion after having been awakened from her nap, but she was a good guide, and this was the most important of all.
Josiah followed her through the almost deserted streets, neither speaking save at rare intervals, when the country boy, despairing of ever reaching Baker’s Court, would ask how much farther it was necessary to walk.
They had arrived within a block of their destination, when an outcry from the opposite side of the street caused both to halt suddenly.
“It’s Bob!” Sadie said in mingled delight and surprise, and an instant later Master Green was listening to his friend’s story of the fruitless search at Coney Island.
“Tom’s ’round by the pier waitin’ for you. I tell you when we got back an’ found you hadn’t come, things looked blue. I was ’fraid you wouldn’t have money enough to pay for a lodgin’ down there, ’cause it would cost pretty high if they charge for beds the same as they do for chowder, an’ I couldn’t make out how you was goin’ to get along.”
“I guess we’d had to stay on the board walk all night,” Sadie said laughingly; “but now we’ve found you there’s no use fussin’ any more. I’ll go right home, ’cause I reckon Mother Hunter’ll be pretty ugly if I don’t show up soon.”
“You’re goin’ to our house’ an’ stay till mornin’,” Bob said decidedly. “You haven’t earned any money, an’ that old woman’ll jest about break you all to pieces if you don’t give her a cent. I fixed it with mother, an’ you can get along without a reg’lar bed.”
“I guess I can,” Sadie replied promptly. “It’s been so long since I knew how it felt to sleep in one, that I shouldn’t get on very well if I had a bed all to myself.”
While the three were talking, Tom returned breathless from long running, and was on the point of announcing that their friends did not arrive on the last boat, when he caught a glimpse of those who had been lost.