So off she went, with many thanks an’ blessings, and her young husband and her baby, and we heard no more of ’em for three days. Until a young man in cords come down our court leadin’ a handsome donkey drawing a neat, plain truck behind it.
“For Mr. and Mrs. Cheevers.”
To our door he brought it, an’ there hands to me an envelope with
“For Mr. and Mrs. Cheevers”
wrote upon it, and inside, more writing—
“From Nick and Nan,”
and a five-pound note. And as Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, the pa and ma of the lost baby, had chose this way, so delicate an’ so kind, of rewardin’ us for the little we had done, and as Them Two showed such pleasure in the pleasure of Cheevers and me, what could we do, but thankfully accept?
An’ after that no more shoving the barrow, with rheumatic pains in Cheevers’ joints, but a shaggy willing beast to draw it, not too nice to eat damaged greens or anything else, when they ran short.
While Nick saw to that donkey his own self, and many a time I have sat behind him, as proud and glad, as if he was four bays with rosettes behind their ears, when Cheevers thought a jaunt as far as Kew ’ud do me good, and over them tram-ruts is certainly a stimulant to the liver.