"But I couldn't leave you, Uncle Bob—you know that; at least, not for all the time. If there were only two of me and I could live with each of you how nice it would be. Of course I'd love to be with Uncle Tom sometimes. Why couldn't I live with one of you part of the time and with the other the rest of the year? I'd rather be here in the summer, though, I think, because it's near the ocean."
How simple the great tangle over which the two men had argued suddenly seemed!
"Jean has settled it herself!" Uncle Tom exclaimed. "It shall be Pittsburgh winters and Boston summers. I wonder we didn't solve it that way in the beginning."
So everybody was pleased. Even Hannah admitted that if that was the best that could be done she would put up with it; but she made Uncle Tom Curtis promise to lay in a big supply of soap.
"You must scrub her face and hands three times a day, and at least once between meals if she is to live in Pittsburgh," remarked she. "And please remember to have the grime soaked out of her white dresses, Mr. Curtis. Borax and a little ammonia will do it," she concluded seriously.
"We will wash not only the clothes in ammonia water, but Jean if you say so, Hannah," promised Uncle Tom.
At this everybody laughed.
Then by and by they had luncheon, and Uncle Tom Curtis said it was a much better meal than he had had at the Club the night before; and Hannah said that maybe Pittsburgh was not so black as it was painted; and Uncle Bob said he'd send the inside man to the Chandlers' to get the puppy that very afternoon. And he did. And the puppy came, and he was very small, and very fat, and very wobbly. His head was much too large for him and so were his feet.
"You must name him Beacon Hill and call him Beacon for short, Jean," said Uncle Tom Curtis—which, coming from Uncle Tom Curtis, who thought there was no place on earth like Pittsburgh, was a generous condescension.
