Before Kit could answer, a third voice came over the wire.
“Look out for pitch lakes over there!” There was no mistaking the cheery voice of Mr. Clark. “We’ll be gone before you see us, but never mind. We’ve done a good day’s work for you to-day, Silburn. A good voyage to you, and—success!”
There were so many hundred things to be done at home in so few hours! And that ever-present, ever-troublesome question of money! The hard saving of the whole family for months had not been for nothing. Kit was surprised to find how much his mother had saved for this occasion; and she was equally surprised to learn that he had nearly two hundred dollars in his pocket. With the joy of the errand and the sorrow of parting he hardly remembered just what happened when he said good-by.
“Be careful of my little parcel!” Vieve called after him as Silas cracked his whip and the stage rattled down the road.
CHAPTER XIX.
KIT FINDS HIS FATHER.
IT was a beautiful spring-like day in the latter part of September when Kit stepped ashore on the quay in the city of Wellington, New Zealand. Fresh new leaves were upon the trees, fresh green grass in the lawns, bright fresh flowers in the beds. Nature had recently awakened from her winter sleep, and the young city of the Antipodes was at its brightest and best.
During the long voyage he had had ample time to determine just what he must do on arrival. First, of course, he would go to the American consul’s and introduce himself; and how often he had hoped that the consul would not detain him long, for he would be so anxious to get to the hospital! And then he would hurry to the hospital, and in five minutes the great question would be decided.
But now that he was actually on the spot, things did not look, somehow, exactly as he had expected. No place ever does look just as we expect when we have long been thinking about it and then go to see it for the first time. He looked with curiosity at the big buildings, wondering which was the hospital, which the consulate. He could hardly grasp the idea that in all probability his father was in one of those buildings before him. But suppose that, after all, the man in the hospital should not prove to be his father; suppose he had made this long journey for nothing? He quickened his steps up the street to walk these useless fancies away.
“Will you be kind enough to tell me the way to the American consulate, sir?” he asked a gentleman whom he met.