“Not much,” trying to master the emotion that made it difficult to speak; “he never liked to talk about himself, but he told me once he had always been sort of alone ever since he could remember, and that he hadn't a relative in the world.”
Two days afterward, Bobbin was laid away in a corner of the little cemetery surrounding St. George's Church, Mr. Marberry having gained the consent of the Vestry to have him buried there. Mr. Marberry read the service from Flutters's own Prayer-Book, and about the grave of the old man whose life had been so lonely, gathered at the last a little company of loving friends. It seemed to Flutters as if, with Bobbin's death, the chapter of his life that had to do with the wretched circus had been forever closed, but, oh, how thankful he was to have been able to make so calm and peaceful the last days of the only friend it had ever given him. Once again the road-side cottage was dismantled of everything that made it homelike, and as the bleak wintry winds whistled round and through it, who would have thought that such a little while ago an old man had been comfortably housed there, and that it was only now left tenantless, because its occupant no longer had need of any earthly shelter.
CHAPTER XXIV—TWO IMPORTANT LETTERS
VACUATION DAY, with all its excitement, was soon followed by that day well nigh as eventful, when on the Fourth of December General Washington took final leave of his officers “in the great historic room” at Fraunces Tavern, a leavetaking that proved a very touching and trying ordeal both for him and for them. Starlight and Flutters, who had contrived to be in the forefront of the crowd that looked on, could have told you how plainly strong emotion was betrayed on the brave General's face, as he passed out from the tavern, and down to the barge that was waiting to convey him to Paulus Hook on his way to Congress.
But after that day, affairs settled down into much quieter channels than they had known for some time—that is, at any rate as far as the people with whom we have most to do are concerned. The Van Vleets had asked Aunt Frances to make her home with them indefinitely, and though still faintly cherishing the hope that she might have her own home back again some day, she had accepted their invitation, and opened a little school among the farmers' children in the neighborhood. Starlight was one of her most promising pupils, and so his visits to Kings Bridge were of necessity less frequent than they used to be. In that matter, Cousin Harry had a great advantage over him, for having moved to New York in order to be near his office, what more natural, and, as Harry would have said, “what more delightful,” than to spend all his evenings at the Bonifaces? And what a blessing those visits were to them, only they themselves could have told you. As soon as he arrived he would first go upstairs and have a talk with the Captain, ransacking his mind for everything that could by any possibility interest him; then when he had told the little or much that he had to tell, or saw that he was tiring him, down he would go to the sitting-room, have a romp with Bonny Kate, if she had managed to stay up past her bed-time, or possibly a game of some sort with Hazel and Flutters, but it generally happened that after a while there was no one left to talk to save Josephine, and of course you know better than to think that Harry minded that. Josephine had generally some bit of work in hand, and could not afford to simply laugh and chat the evening away, with her pretty hands lying idle in her lap, as perhaps is the case with your older sister, when some friend comes to call. No, indeed! it was necessary in those days for her to stitch, and stitch industriously in every available moment, if the Boniface needs were to be in any wise met; nor did these two young people laugh and chat very much either—the times were rather too serious for that; not that they did not have a happy time of it, and sometimes were actually merry, but, as a rule, they seemed to have something of importance to quietly talk over.