Their hearts filled with hope, Bunny and Sue, holding Mr. Ward’s hands and eating the cookies they had brought with them, went out of the factory yard. Mr. Ward had no trouble in getting out of the maze of alleys, and soon Bunny and Sue saw the familiar bay, on the shore of which was their father’s dock.
“Now I know where we are,” said Bunny.
“We aren’t lost any more,” added Sue thankfully.
“There’s where Black Bobby lives,” said Mr. Ward, pointing to a ramshackle and tumble-down house. “And here comes Black Bobby himself,” he added, as a tall colored boy, in ragged clothes, shuffled from the yard into the street.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE RAGGEDY MAN
“Hello, Bobby!” exclaimed Mr. Ward, who seemed to know the colored boy. “What are you doing?”
“Nawthin’,” answered Black Bobby.
“That’s what you’re generally doing,” chuckled Mr. Ward. “But say, Bobby, you have a dog, haven’t you? A dog you found the other day?”
“Ya’as, I got a dog,” answered Black Bobby. “An’ he’s my dog, too. Nobody’s goin’ to take him away.”
“Well, somebody took away a dog belonging to this little girl and boy,” went on Mr. Ward, “and they thought maybe their dog was the one you found. We’d like to look at him.”