CHAPTER IX
THE WHITE TENT
I didn't remember anything, until I woke up and found myself lying on the porch, and Mr. Taylor bending over me with a glass of water in his hand, all the Teddy-cats purring at me, and my head on somebody's lap. Mr. Taylor was saying, "Sho, I guess he's coming to, and ye'd better not let him see ye, jist at first"; but I turned quick before she could move, and grabbed her and said, "Oh, Aunty May."
I thought I'd shouted it, but it sounded just like a squeak.
Aunty May didn't care. She just lifted me up in her arms and held me tight, and said, "Oh, Billy, how could you run away from me?"
It took me the longest while explaining to her and to Mr. Turner and to Mr. Taylor, who didn't say anything but "Sho" and shoo the cats, and never looked at the others. But I knew he'd hear every word and remember it, if I didn't, so I told them exactly what happened. How sorry Henry was to go away, but that he had to, and that I didn't know where the place was that we'd parted at, and how I thought he was coming back when we started.
Mr. Turner said it was all right, that Henry was an honest, industrious boy, but he had fits of homesickness, though they had never known about his getting up early and walking.
Aunty May forgave me, and Mr. and Mrs. Turner forgave me too.
Mrs. Turner was in the launch, and was just telling me to jump in and come up with Aunty May to dinner, when Mr. Taylor, who had been listening and not saying anything, said, "I hope that wasn't the Lateeka Toll-House ye stopped at, young man. I heerd say there was so much diphtheria and scarlet fever there that they hev closed the tollhouse."