"I had a hard matter to find you," he said. "You had left the lodging they directed me to at first."
"But I left word where I had come to."
"Ay, so you had; and an old woman there told me you were at No. 10 Paradise Row."
"What could she be thinking of?"
"No one had heard of you in that place. However, as I was going along back again to get better information, keeping a sharp look-out in hopes I might meet you, I passed the end of this lane, and saw it was called Eden-lane, so I thought perhaps the old lady had fancied Paradise and Eden were all the same; and sure enough, they are both as like one as the other, for they are wretched, miserable places as ever I saw. I turned in here, and then No. 10 proved wrong too; and as I was standing looking about, and wondering what I had better do next, a gentleman touched my arm, and pointing first at the black pools in the broken pavement, and then up at this window, he said—I remember his very words, they struck me so—'Do not the very stones rise up in judgment against us! Look at these poor little fellows trying to fly their kite out of a broken pane!' Hearing him say so, I looked up, and saw my old kite—by it I found you at last."
They all turned gratefully toward it, and saw that it still swung outside, held there safely by its entangled tail. The talk, therefore, went on uninterruptedly. Many questions were asked and answered, and many subjects discussed; the sad state of poor little Jem being the most pressing. At the end of an hour a great bustle was going on in the room: they were packing up all their small stock of goods, for Harry had succeeded, after some argument, in persuading his mother to leave her unhealthy lodging that very evening, and not to risk even one more night for poor Jem in that poisonous air. He smoothed every difficulty. Mrs. Willis gladly undertook to do the work she had engaged to do; and with her he deposited money for the rent, and the key of the room. He declared he had another place ready to take his mother to; and to her anxious look he replied, "I did good service in the ship, and the owners have been generous to us all. I've got forty pounds."
"Forty pounds!" If he had said, "I have got possession of a gold district in California," he would not have created a greater sensation. It seemed an inexhaustible amount of wealth.
A light cart was soon hired and packed, and easily held not only the goods (not forgetting the kite), but the living possessors of them; and they set forth on their way.
The evening sun again beamed over the country; and the tall trees, as they threw their shadow across the grass, waved a blessing on the family that passed beneath, from whose hearts a silent thanksgiving went up that harmonized with the joyous hymn of the birds. The sun-burnt traveler, as he walked at the horse's head, holding his elder brother's hand, no longer looked anxiously onward, for he knew where he was going, and saw by him his younger brother already beginning to revive in the fresh air, and rejoiced in his mother's expression of content and happiness. She had divined for some time to what home she was going.
"But how did you contrive to get it fixed so quickly, my kind, good boy?" she said.