JERRY.
CHAPTER I.
THE RUNAWAY’S RETURN.
“I wish I could look out and see father coming; here it is the tenth of the month, and he ought to have got home a week ago. February, March, April, May,—it’s over three months since father went off, and he said he should be back by the first of May. I can’t imagine what has become of him. There’s the doctor coming, I believe. Yes, that’s his wagon. He’s got a man with him—who knows but it’s father? No, it’s a young fellow. I wonder who it is. He’s as black as an Indian; and he’s casting up sheep’s-eyes at me, too. Well, I don’t care for you, whoever you are.”
The doctor’s wagon stopped, and so did the busy tongue whose words we have been repeating. The doctor alighted, and walked into the house without ceremony; and Emily, the proprietor of the tongue aforesaid, flattened her little nose against the chamber-window in her efforts to look down upon the young stranger, who remained seated in the wagon.
“Why, it’s somebody that mother knows,” Emily added, after a few moments’ pause; “she has run out to the wagon, and she’s hugging and kissing him, and he kissed her! Oh, I know now who it is,—it’s Jerry! it’s Jerry!” and the girl, half crazed with excitement, jumped from her seat and ran to the door.
“I’m going, too,” said Harriet, her younger sister, springing toward the door.
“No,” said Emily, holding the door fast; “you mustn’t go now; it won’t do to leave the baby. I’ll come right back in a minute, and let you go.”
“I want to go now; mother told you to tend the baby,” replied Harriet, beginning to snivel.
“You may both go, children, and I’ll see to the baby,” said Dr. Hart, who suddenly opened the door upon them.