“Is Wanza sick?” There was something hopeful in his tone.
“No,” I said, “Wanza is very well, lad.”
Again that blank look, that delicate shiver.
“We’ll have a fire going in no time, lad, and a cake in the oven, and the blue dishes on the table. And say the word and I’ll slap the saddle on Buttons and ride post-haste to Wanza and tell her I have a wonderful, wonderful surprise for her—that Joey has come back, after we had given up hoping. I’ll bring her here—shall I, Joey?—to help bake the cake. Oh, dear, dear lad!—” I cried, and broke down.
Such a shout as he gave. He had me by the neck and was clinging to me like a wild young savage. “You didn’t get my letter—you didn’t, you didn’t!”
“Did you write, Joey?”
“Yep, sure I wrote. Course I wrote. Soon as Bell Brandon told me I belonged to you really and truly I wrote and I let Bell Brandon put a letter in the envelope with mine. I put your name on the outside. I printed Mr. David, as careful, and Bell Brandon watched me. She made me write Dale on it, too. But when she wasn’t looking I rubbed out the Dale part, and I mailed it myself on the corner. I told you to spect me on my birthday, and Bell Brandon told you to meet me at Spokane ’cause I was coming all alone from Chicago.”
Poor lad! Poor disappointed lad! He gave a strange, tired sigh, but meeting my somber eyes, brightened. “I like traveling alone. Pooh! I’d liever travel alone than—than anything. But when you didn’t meet me at Roselake even, I thought—I thought p’r’aps you didn’t want me! And when I got out of the stage at the meadow and cut across, and peeked at the cabin and you wasn’t around, I was ’most sure you didn’t want me. And then I saw how dirty I was, and I thought I’d tidy up first before you saw me, anyhow.”
I went back to the river bank, sought for and found Joey’s traveling bag and carried it to the house. Joey brought out of its depths a letter and handed it to me. But I did not read it at once. I put my lad in a big chair in the kitchen, and I built a fire in the stove and I set out flour and sugar and molasses, all the while praying that Wanza would appear. I laid the table in the front room with the best blue china, and I got out the pressed glass comport; and I gathered handfuls of syringa and honeysuckle, and brought them in the big yellow pitcher to Joey, saying:
“You may arrange these, Joey, for the table.”