Page:Barbour--Captain Chub.djvu/419

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GIFTS AND FAREWELLS
401

be missed. Then she hurried out to the sidewalk and viewed it with her head perked about like a bird’s. Chub and Harry joined her and observed the effect with satisfaction, and Chub, to Mrs. Peel’s delight, discovered that it could be read from the corner of the street if you found just the right spot to stand.

They made a few modest purchases for the boat’s larder and then bade Mrs. Peel good-by.

“Well,” she said, “I do hope you’ll come again. You’ve been most kind and obliging, all of you. I do hope you won’t hold it against me, the way James acted. He’s a real nice man, ’cept when he gets his tantrums, and then he’s that set and—and pig-headed there isn’t any use trying to argue with him.”

“I think that’s so,” murmured Chub.

“Indeed, we didn’t mind him at all, did we, Chub?” assured Harry.

“No’m, not a bit,” Chub replied. “I—I hope he got his train all right last night?”

“He must have, I guess. If he hadn’t he’d been back again likely. He was real ashamed of the way he’d acted and the things he’d said, but wild horses couldn’t get him to own up to