Garry had positively refused to go with them.
“It was you fellows that she gave the boat to and it’s for you to pay her back,” he had said.
“Do you remember how old—how Mr. Stanton laughed when I talked to him?” said Pee-wee as they tramped along the familiar road. “You can’t deny that I put it into his head to give us the boat. And I bet if I ask him to let Harry go on a cruise now, he’ll do it. You leave it to me—I know how to handle him.”
“All right, kiddo, we’ll leave it to you,” laughed Roy, “but I’ve got a sneaking idea that when they once get their fists on our long lost son and brother it’ll take a crow-bar to pry him loose again.”
“You leave it to me.”
It would be hard to say what Harry Stanton’s feelings were as he walked homeward with his three companions. He seemed nervous and anxious and said but little, but every object which met his gaze now was familiar to him and as he looked about upon the very fields where he had played and the houses which he knew he seemed to acquire poise and self-possession. An odd habit which he had shown to Garry and somewhat to the others of confusing his life at Mr. Waring’s with his old life at home, was fast disappearing and now each familiar sight seemed to act like a potent medicine to bring him to himself.
A man who passed them on the road turned and stared at him, then went on, turning again and again. He spoke to a man who was raking a lawn and who also stared after him. The boys paid no heed.
At last they reached the house. No one was about, and they took a short cut across the lawn, right under the big tree where Pee-wee had captured the fugitive bird. Here was a garden bench and leaving Harry Stanton seated upon it, they went up on the porch and rang the bell. Pee-wee was visibly nervous and even Roy showed repressed excitement, but Tom was stolid as he always was.
There was the calling of a voice within, the faint sound of footsteps on the stair, and young Ruth Stanton stood on the inner side of the screen door looking at them. For a moment she stared in amazement and in that momentary look Tom caught a glint of the same expression that had puzzled him in Jeffrey Waring in their first encounter on the lonely hill. Then suddenly her face lighted up with a merry smile of recognition.
“Oh, hello,” she said, opening the door and speaking in great surprise. “I didn’t know you——”