Master stood still for a while, either to listen, or to breathe the panting Beanie, whose eyes were dim with tears, as he looked not up at the white-picked stone mass of the building, but down at the cold, stone pavement.
Presently we went on with our faces to the east. Now it dawned upon me where we were going. I jumped and frisked about my master. How clever he was. He had remembered old Ellen’s address. She was just the one to soothe and comfort poor Beanie.
“See what a nice wide avenue you’re going to live on,” I said to Beanie.
“There’s no view of the River,” he muttered.
I sighed. There’s no comforting a dog with a broken heart.
He did cheer up a bit, when we got into Ellen’s flat. How glad she was to see my master. Not cringingly glad, but glad in the nice, affectionate way coloured people have toward those they like.
She was sitting in one of the big rocking-chairs in her tiny kitchen, and had evidently been looking out the window at the crowds of people sauntering to and fro on the brightly lighted avenue. This was a great place for the coloured persons employed among whites to come to see their friends and families, and on a fine evening they did a good deal of their talking in the street.
Master motioned her back to her chair, and he took Robert Lee’s rocker at the other little window.
“I have brought you a present,” he said, and he glanced at Beanie and me as we lay at his feet.