How charming she looked as she walked toward me!  I had never seen her quite so fixed up.

“Bart,” she said.  “I suppose you’re not going to speak to me.”

“If you’ll speak to me,” I answered.

“I love to speak to you,” she said.  “I’ve been looking all around for you.  Mother wants you to come over to dinner with us at just twelve o’clock.  You’re going away with father as soon as we get through.”

I wanted to go but got the notion all at once that the Dunkelbergs were in need of information about me and that the time had come to impart it.  So then and there, that ancient Olympus of our family received notice as it were.

“I can’t,” I said.  “I’ve got to study my lessons before I go away with your father.”

It was a blow to her.  I saw the shadow that fell upon her face.  She was vexed and turned and ran away from me without another word and I felt a pang of regret as I went to the lonely and deserted home of the schoolmaster.

I had hoped that the Senator would ask me to dinner, but the coming of the President had upset the chance of it.  It was eleven o’clock.  Mrs. Hacket had put a cold bite on the table for me.  I ate it—­not to keep it waiting—­and sat down with my eyes on my book and my mind at the Dunkelbergs’—­where I heard in a way what Sally was saying and what “Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg” were saying.

At twelve-thirty Mr. Dunkelberg came for me, with a high-stepping horse in a new harness and a shiny still-running buggy.  He wore gloves and a beaver hat and sat very erect and had little to say.

“I hear you met the President,” he remarked.

“Yes, sir.  I was introduced to him this morning,” I answered a bit too proudly, and wondering how he had heard of my good fortune, but deeply gratified at his knowledge of it.

“What did he have to say?”

I described the interview and the looks of the great man.  Not much more was said as we sped away toward the deep woods and the high hills.

I was eager to get home but wondered why he should be going with me to talk with Mr. Grimshaw and my uncle.  Of course I suspected that it had to do with Amos but how I knew not.  He hummed in the rough going and thoughtfully nicked the bushes with his whip.  I never knew a more persistent hummer.

What a thrill came to me when I saw the house and the popple tree and the lilac bushes—­they looked so friendly!  Old Shep came barking up the road to meet us and ran by the buggy side with joyful leaps and cries.  With what affection he crowded upon me and licked my face and hands when my feet were on the ground at last!  Aunt Deel and Uncle Peabody were coming in from the pasture lot with sacks of butternuts on a wheelbarrow.  My uncle clapped his hands and waved his handkerchief and shouted “Hooray!”

Aunt Deel shook hands with Mr. Dunkelberg and then came to me and said: 

“Wal, Bart Baynes!  I never was so glad to see anybody in all the days o’ my life—­ayes!  We been lookin’ up the road for an hour—­ayes!  You come right into the house this minute—­both o’ you.”