Next morning when Bird awoke, she had forgotten and felt much better for her long sleep, but when she sat up and looked at the strange room, it all came back. One thought mingled with the dread of parting,—she was going to New York; there was where the wall-paper man lived and people learned things. Hope was strong in her also, and never did she doubt for a moment but what she could win her way and come back some day to her friends if she could only find the right path.
Downstairs all was confusion. Joshua Lane had come from Aunt Jimmy’s to take O’More over to the judge’s house to sign some papers. A man had followed him up to say Dr. Jedd felt the old lady was worse. Mrs. Lane was giving Bird a thousand directions and warnings that she couldn’t possibly remember, and in the middle of it all Lammy, looking straight before him and dumb as an owl, his eyes nearly closed from last night’s crying, drove around in the business wagon to take the travellers to the station, four good miles away.
“Here’s my card, so you’ll know where I hang out,” said John O’More, as he stepped into the wagon, holding out a bit of printed pasteboard to Joshua Lane, “and if you need anything in my line, I’ll let you in on the square.” On one corner was the picture of a horse’s head, on the other a wagon, and the letters read, “John O’More with Brush & Burr, Dealers in Horses, Vehicles of all Kinds, Harness & Stable Fixings.” Then they drove away, Bird keeping her eyes fixed on Twinkle who Lammy had settled in the straw at their feet.
“To think she was going and I was so put about I never asked the address,” sighed Mrs. Lane, adjusting her glasses and looking at the card. “For goodness sakes, Joshua, do you suppose he’s a horse-jockey? I sort of hoped he might be in groceries, or coal or lumber,—something solid and respectable. What would poor Terry say?”
“I really don’t know, Lauretta Ann,” sighed Joshua, whose slow nature was showing the wear, tear, and hurry of the last few days; “but he’s Terry’s brother, not ourn. It takes all kinds of fellers to make up a world, and I hev met honest horse-jockeys, and then again I haven’t. I wished I’d thought to ask him the bottom price for a new chaise; ourn is so weak every time you cross the ford I’m afeared you’ll spill through the bottom into the water,” and Joshua turned on his heel and went in to a belated breakfast, while his wife jerked remarks at the chickens she made haste to feed, about the heartlessness of all men, which she didn’t in the least mean.
******
They had ten minutes or so to wait for the train when they reached the Centre, and, after taking her valise to be checked and buying the ticket, O’More returned to the wagon for Bird. For the first time she remembered that she had not asked about Twinkle and perhaps he might need a ticket. Making a brave effort to get out the name that choked her, yet too considerate to use the plain Mr., she said: “Uncle John,—you won’t mind if I take Twinkle with me, will you? He’s very clean and clever; I love him dearly and he was so good to Terry when he was sick.”
O’More was the bustling city man now, and whatever sentiment had swayed him the night before was slept away. He gave a glance at the dog and shook his head in the negative.
“That’s a no account little yaller cur. If your aunt will let you keep a pup, there’s always a litter around the stable you can pick from, though they’re more’n likely to fall off the fire-escape.”