"Go right home, then, and tell your father the only good house to let in this neighborhood will be ready for him next week. I'll show it to him when he comes, but he'd better see me at once. Dabney, jump into the buggy. I'm in a hurry."
The ponies were in motion, up the street, before Ford Foster quite recovered from the shock of being told to "go right home."
"A very remarkable woman," he muttered, as he turned away, "and she did not tell me a word about the house, after all. I must make some more inquiries. The boy is actually well dressed, for a place like this."
"Mother," said Dabney, as they drove along, "you wouldn't let 'em have
Ham's house, would you?"
"No, indeed. But I don't mean to have our own stand empty."
With that reply a great deal of light broke in upon Dab's mind.
"That's it, is it?" he said to himself, as he touched up the ponies. "Well, there'll be room enough for all of us there, and no mistake. But what'll Ham say?"
That was a question which he could safely leave to the very responsible lady beside him; and she found "errands" enough for him, during the remainder of that forenoon, to keep him from worrying his mind about any thing else.
As for Ford Foster, it was not until late on the following day that he completed all his "inquiries" to his satisfaction. He took the afternoon train for the city, almost convinced that, much as he undoubtedly knew before he came, he had actually acquired a good deal more knowledge which might be of some value.
Ford was almost the only passenger in the car he had selected. Trains going towards the city were apt to be thinly peopled at that time of day; but the empty cars had to be taken along all the same, for the benefit of the crowds who would be coming out later in the afternoon and in the evening. The railway-company would have made more money with full loads both ways, but it was well they did not have a full load on that precise train.