"Is—is anything wrong there?" he asked, jerking his thumb toward the darkened room within.
"It's just Ma," the little man told him. He spoke meekly, almost apologetically, but his high-pitched voice carried clearly to the other boys. "She's all broke up over not seein' John."
"John?" Bunny put a question in the word; then, when it brought no reply, he added, at a hazard, "He's your son, sir?"
"Yes, John's our boy. He's a good boy, John is. But he's been away a long time, and now—"
"Is he coming home?"
The man raised his hand as if to ward off a blow. "No," he said in a wavering voice. "He's going away, mebbe for years; going away to China. He's an engineer, John is; works for a big construction company in New York City. This spring he wrote that he would come home to visit Ma and me. So we tidied up all about for him." The little man waved an expressive hand, and Bunny understood, all at once, why the grass was so neatly cropped, and why the flowers studded the lawn, and why the pathway to the door was made of clean, white pebbles. It had all been done for their son. "But to-day we got a telegram—delayed, they said over the 'phone. He can't come. He's ordered to China, right away, to help build a new railroad. His boat leaves San Francisco on the sixth, and he can't even stop on his way across the country. But he said—"
"Yes?" Bunny encouraged.
"He wired to meet his train at Middletown on the third—that's to-day. It stops there twenty minutes. But the telegram just came, and we haven't any way of getting there. That's why Ma is all broke up. She won't see him for years more, mebbe."
"Oh!" said Bunny. A queer, numb feeling seemed to be gripping him. "How far is Middletown?"
"Eighteen mile; nearer nineteen, mebbe."