* * * * *

For a while, Johnny went on manfully; but soon his little fingers and toes began to beg him to go back.  He refused to notice their petition, and wished grandma could see him, as the wind whirled him round and round and almost buried him in the snow.  He thought he had gone about ten miles, when he heard bells.  He turned to one side for the sleigh to pass, when he heard a voice he knew.

“Oh, Jerry,” he cried, “please take me in!”

Jerry stopped, and asked, “Who are ye?”

“I’m Johnny,” said our small hero, quite meekly.

“And where may ye be bound to, Johnny?” said Jerry.

“To the depot.  I’m going to New York,” said Johnny, who thought this a mild way to tell Jerry he was running away.

“This road niver took any one to the depot, Jacky.  If I hadn’t come this way, yer’d been froze stiff in the mornin’.”

Here Jerry rolled his eyes in a dreadful manner, and trembled like one terribly frightened.  Johnny would have cried hard, but he remembered how brave Jerry was when he ran away, so he winked hard to keep back the tears, and said: 

“Do you think I shall ‘froze’ now, Jerry?”

Jerry thought not, if he minded him.  So he lifted him into the sleigh, and they drove on.

“Is this the depot?” asked Johnny, when they stopped.

“Ye be hard on the depot.  This is my house.” said Jerry.

As he opened the door, his mother said, “I’ve looked afther yez since the dark, and what have ye there?” as she saw Johnny.

Mike, Jerry’s father, sat by the stove, and there was a baby on the floor.  Johnny thought he never had seen such a funny place.

He liked the baby best, although its yellow flannel night-dress was dirty; but it wasn’t quite his idea of a baby.

“What shall we do wid him, Mike?” said the lady of the house, as she saw Johnny’s head bobbing and his eyes closing.

“I thought ye’d kape him here till the next train for New York,” said Jerry, laughing.

Mike laid down his pipe, and began to put on his coat.

“Is it to go out again that yez will, this arful night, Mike?” said Maggie.

“Lay him out on the bed; lave him to slape here to-night, Maggie.  I’ll go and make it aisy wid the old folks,” said Mike.

He found grandma sitting before the fire-place.  Bottles of all sizes stood on the table, and blankets hung on chairs by the fire.  The old lady’s face was pale, and Mike afterward told Maggie, “The hands of her shook like a lafe, and she had the same look on her that she had when they tould her Johnny’s mother was dead.  And when I tould her the boy was safe wid yez here—­Ah, Maggie, she’s a leddy!” said Mike, lowering his voice.

“Well, what did she say?” said Maggie.

“She said I betther sit down an’ ate some supper, to warm meself,” said Mike.

Poor grandma!  She declared afterward she didn’t know Mike was such a good-looking man, and so kind-hearted, too.  But she didn’t keep him long to praise him, but hurried him off to find grandpa.