Just then Annie, the parlormaid, tapped on the door.
"Please'm," she said to Aunt Jo, "that colored boy is goin' down in the cellar to fix the furnace."
"To fix the furnace?" cried Aunt Jo.
"Yes'm. He says he has taken care of a furnace before. He's been up North here for 'most two years. But he lost his job last month and couldn't find another."
"The poor boy," murmured Mother Bunker.
"Yes'm," said Annie. "And when he heard that the house was cold because me nor Parker didn't know what to do about the furnace, and the fire was most out, he said he'd fix it. So he's down there now with Parker and Alexis."
"Did Alexis come home?" cried Russ, who was very fond, as were all the Bunker children, of Aunt Jo's great Dane. "Can't we go down and see Alexis?"
"And see Sam again," said Margy. "Me and Mun Bun found him, you know."
It seemed to the little girl as though the colored boy had been quite taken away from her and from Mun Bun. They had what Mother Bunker laughingly called "prior rights" in Sam.
"Well, if he is a handy boy like that," said Aunt Jo, referring to the colored boy, "and can fix the furnace, we shall just have to keep him until William is well again. Has he finished his dinner, Annie?"