The train was on time, and just as the sun was setting behind the fringe of cottonwoods along Bean Blossom Creek they stopped at the little station, and started to walk out to the farm. A neighbor who was drawing a load of tile from the station recognized Si, and begged them to get up and ride, but the team was too slow for the impatient boys, and they forged ahead. A thousand well-remembered objects along the road would have arrested Si's attention were it not for the supreme interest farther on. At last they came to a little rise of ground which commanded a view of the house, and there, as Si predicted, sat his father and mother engaged in smoking, reading and knitting. His first impulse was to yell with delight, but he restrained himself, and walked as steadily on as he could to the front gate. Old Towser set up a bark and ran down the walk, and then changed his note to de lightful yelps of recognition. Si was so nervous that he fumbled vainly for a minute at the gate-latch, and while he did so he heard his mother say: "Father, there's a couple o' soldiers out there." "Wonder if they kin be from Si's company," said the father, lowering his paper, and looking over his spectacles.
"Why, it's Si himself," screamed the mother in joyful accents. The next instant she had sped down the walk quicker than she had ever gone in her girlhood days, her arms about his neck, and she was crying on his shoulder.
CHAPTER XIII. MANY HAPPY EVENTS
HOURS THAT WERE ALL-TOO-FEW AND ALL-TOO-SHORT.
THE girls heard their mother's happy scream and rushed out, dish towels in hand. They at once realized what had happened, piped up their joyous altos, and precipitated themselves upon Si. The good old Deacon came trotting down the walk, fidgeting with his spectacles, but so enveloped was his son with skirts and women's arms and happy, teary faces that he could not get within arm's length of him. So he turned to Shorty:
"Great day, Shorty, but I'm glad to see you! Come right up on the steps and set down. How'd you happen to come home. Either of you sick or wounded?"
"Nope," answered Shorty sententiously. "Both sound as nuts and healthy as mules."