David, with the paper bag containing slices of corned beef between pieces of bread, not caring where he sat so long as he was on the way with Phronsie to Mamsie, settled down on the cricket that young Mr. Hubbard brought. Then he looked up into the young farmer’s face. “Good-by,” he said, “and thank you for bringing me here.”
“Oh, good-by, youngster,” said Jedediah, wringing a hand that tingled most of the way home. “Well, I hope to run across you again some time. If you ever lose your sister, you just call on me.”
“We aren’t ever going to lose Phronsie,” declared David, bobbing his head solemnly, as the top buggy and the young farmer’s horse moved off.
Mrs. Brown didn’t utter a word all the way to Badgertown except “How d’ye s’pose Jedediah ever found that we had the little gal?”
“Let Jed Hubbard alone for findin’ out anythin’,” said Farmer Brown. He was so occupied in gazing at Phronsie, carefully eating around the edge of each cooky before enjoying the whole of it, that the smart young horse went pretty much as he pleased. Finally Mr. Brown looked down at Davie on his cricket.
“Ain’t you ever goin’ to eat your dinner, young man?” he said. “Ef you don’t we’ll turn an’ go back again,” he added severely.
“Oh, I will—I will,” cried Davie, who had forgotten all about his dinner in his efforts to measure the distance being overcome on the way home to Mamsie. And he unrolled the paper bundle.
When it was all exposed to view, the corned beef smelt so good that he set his teeth in it, and gave a sigh of delight.
Farmer Brown winked across to his wife over Davie’s head and presently the bread, and even a cold potato well sprinkled with salt, disappeared, and only the empty paper lay in Davie’s lap.
“Throw it out in th’ road,” said Farmer Brown, well satisfied that the dinner was at last where it should be.