There were no tracks in the deep snow between the road and the walk in front of the house, and when Silas guided the horses in toward the sidewalk they sank halfway to their knees. Then Kit unwrapped his blanket and sprang out. Some one in the front room of the house saw the stage stop, and that was a matter to be inquired into. All the neighbors take an interest in it when the Huntington stage stops in front of a house. The door opened, and a rosy-cheeked young girl of about fourteen looked out.
“Hello, Vieve!” Kit cried, waving his hand to her. A tropical hurricane could not have made his heart jump like that.
The girl paused long enough to cry out:—
“Mother! Mother! Quick! Here’s Kit!”
And the next moment she was down the walk, and the sailor boy was smothered with hugs and kisses in a way that made old Silas and the shoemaker feel quite young again, and Turk was barking a noisy welcome. In another minute Mrs. Silburn joined them, and all the hugging was repeated.
“Now don’t trouble yourself about the bar’l,” Silas insisted when Kit at length made his way back to the stage. “’Taint no weight at all;” and he took it by the rims and carried it to the piazza, then rolled it into the house.
“I’ve brought you something better than the letter you was lookin’ for, Mrs. Silburn,” he said, as he returned to the stage.
But Mrs. Silburn hardly heard. She had eyes only for Kit, ears only for what he said.
“You’re not sick, Kit, that you’ve come home?” she asked, when the three were in the sitting-room together. “No,” she added, “I need hardly ask that; I never saw you look better. Why, you’re as brown as an Indian.”
“Never was ‘weller’ in my life,” Kit answered as well as he could, for his mother was holding fast to him while Vieve was trying to drag him up to the stove to warm him. “A week’s leave of absence, that’s all, while the ship discharges cargo.”