“And rush it!” was John James’s parting injunction as he hung up the receiver.
The station-master eyed him queerly as he came out. “Le’ ’s see—you look like John Damon used to—not exactly, either—more cityfied! But you be him, ain’t ye?”
“That’s what they call me,” replied John, and submitted to be greeted as an old friend in the jolliest way possible. He also acquired some new facts.
“Your father’s feeble—very feeble,” said the man. “I’m glad you were able to come home to spend Christmas with him.”
“I find it hard to leave my affairs,” soberly said John James.
“They said you wrote so. Wal, you’ll find Asher some grayer, but jolly still. He’s got the mor’gidge all paid off but five hundred or so. He was talkin’ of old times only t’other day, and how much you boys used to think of each other. D’ye rember how he once took the whippin’ ’twas meant for you, an’ never said nothin’?”
“I remember a good many things,” said John James as he left him, and in a few minutes again took his place in the carryall.
He was becoming more and more interested in the family history which “Aunt Sarah” continued to give him, when, at last, the carryall turned up a farm-house lane, and they saw a woman step uncertainly to the side door.
“There’s Mary,” said Aunt Sarah, and the children began to shout: “Here’s Uncle John!”
Asher Damon, the first to respond to the summons, stepped out of the door, a typical New England farmer, in his shirt-sleeves and overalls.