“I think so, too,” exclaimed the boy, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes; “and I would rather spend all the money you can spare in making people happy, than to do anything else in the world with it. Can’t we begin with the people who were good and kind to me, when I was trying to get to you, last year?”
“Of course, we can,” answered Colonel Dale. “I had thought of them, and have planned this journey so as to follow as nearly as possible the same route that you and Uncle Phin took, and find all the people we can who were kind to you.”
They began to carry out this delightful plan of making people happy that very day, by having the “Cynthia” side-tracked at the station nearest to where the Chapmans lived, and driving to their house.
Nothing could exceed the astonishment of this kind-hearted family at again seeing Arthur, and hearing of all the marvellous things that had happened to him since they last met. Mr. Chapman hitched up his team, and with his wife, and Bert, and Sue, drove over to the railway station, to take dinner with Arthur and his grandfather in the beautiful car.
There they renewed their acquaintance with Uncle Phin, and made him feel very proud, by praising his cooking, and eating heartily of all the good things that he had provided.
After dinner, Arthur said he wanted to tell them a fairy story, instead of reading one to them, as he had done before. It was all about a pretty cottage, near a large city, that had been bought in their name, and was waiting for them. There was also employment waiting for Mr. Chapman in that city, and schools to which Mrs. Chapman could send the children. In the cottage waited the biggest doll that was ever seen for little Sue, while in the cottage stable waited a pony for Bert. The best part of this fairy story was, that it was every word true.
The next stop of the “Cynthia” was in Pittsburgh, where Colonel Dale, and Arthur, and Uncle Phin, all went to see good Aunt Charity, and left the dear old soul staring in tearful amazement at a check for a larger amount of money than she had ever seen in all her life. It was given her for the education of the twins, who were to be brought up to “de whitewash an de kalsomine bizness.”
Then they went to Harrisburg, where Conductor Tobin’s little house, not far from the railroad, was bought and presented to him, to be his very own for always, and where Kitty Tobin was given the handsomest copy of “Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales” that could be procured.
As they were walking back to the car from Conductor Tobin’s house, a boy with a bundle of papers under his arm, stared intently at Arthur for a moment, and then sprang directly in front of him exclaiming:
“Don’t yer know me? I’m de kid what you licked one time.”