“But it was all my fault. I needn’t have been so weak-minded.”
When she left next morning there was a roll under the wagon-seat done up in brown paper. She had not known that the roll was there till she got home, when she found it contained a beautiful rug—a far better one than had been burned.
“Just like Mrs. Dunlee! She knew if I should see it before I came away I should hate to take it. And what’s this? A bran new shawl! Well, well, well! She’s a good woman, if there is one. Do you hear what I say, Biddy Chick?”
VII
THE BOY FROM NEW YORK
In October a little boy came from New York with his father to visit Major Irwin. It was Gilly’s cousin, Dick Somers; and Dick was destined to get Jimmy into trouble.
He was a boastful boy. He told wonderful stories about the city of New York, where the houses went as high as Jack’s beanstalk, and the people had so much money that they almost threw it away.
Dick had left a dog at home which seemed to him now as large as a small burro. Yes, he was sure of it. A dog much brighter than Punch Dunlee, as well as vastly handsomer.
Dick had a beautiful sister; there was no one like her in California. She had been married six weeks before this in church; and “I tell you what, they spread carpets all over the streets for Maggie to walk on; yes, they did!”