“All right, I’ll do it. Come for me this evening, as usual.”
“Yes, sir.”
So the rich Mr. Blakeley alighted from his automobile and started to walk through Hoyt Street—a place where, as far as he could remember, he had never before been. It was not often that rich and well-dressed men were seen there.
And, as it happened, Mr. Blakeley passed Mrs. Clark’s poor little store. And just then the sun shone on the Woolly Dog—on his clean, white, curling coat of lamb’s wool.
“Bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Blakeley, for he was rather an old-fashioned gentleman. “Bless me! There’s the very thing for Donald’s birthday! It will save me going down town.”
Donald Cressey was the son of Mr. Blakeley’s sister, and the boy was a great favorite of his uncle. Mr. Blakeley’s sister was not as rich as was he, and she could not afford to buy expensive presents. But Mr. Blakeley always saw to it that on Donald’s birthday and at Christmas the boy had something nice.
“Yes, that Woolly Dog will just do for Donald,” went on Mr. Blakeley. “He can’t hurt himself with it, and he can have lots of fun. I’m glad I remembered it was his birthday—came near forgetting it. And it’s lucky I happened to walk through this street. I didn’t know they kept toys here. I’ll go in and get that Dog.”
Then Mr. Blakeley opened the door of Mrs. Clark’s poor little store and went inside.
CHAPTER III
THE WOOLLY DOG’S NEW HOME
“Something I can do for you?” asked Mrs. Clark, “all in a flutter,” she said afterward to her neighbor, Mrs. Elkton, who kept a little grocery store. “The idea,” said Mrs. Clark, “of a rich gentleman like him walking into my poor little place!”