Kennicott chuckled, “By golly, look down there!  Jack Elder must have painted his garage.  And look!  Martin Mahoney has put up a new fence around his chicken yard.  Say, that’s a good fence, eh?  Chicken-tight and dog-tight.  That’s certainly a dandy fence.  Wonder how much it cost a yard?  Yes, sir, they been building right along, even in winter.  Got more enterprise than these Californians.  Pretty good to be home, eh?”

She noted that all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage into their back yards, to be cleaned up in spring.  The recent thaw had disclosed heaps of ashes, dog-bones, torn bedding, clotted paint-cans, all half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards.  The refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste:  thin red, sour yellow, streaky brown.

Kennicott chuckled, “Look over there on Main Street!  They got the feed store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold.  That’ll improve the appearance of the block a lot.”

She noted that the few people whom they passed wore their raggedest coats for the evil day.  They were scarecrows in a shanty town. . . .  “To think,” she marveled, “of coming two thousand miles, past mountains and cities, to get off here, and to plan to stay here!  What conceivable reason for choosing this particular place?”

She noted a figure in a rusty coat and a cloth cap.

Kennicott chuckled, “Look who’s coming!  It’s Sam Clark!  Gosh, all rigged out for the weather.”

The two men shook hands a dozen times and, in the Western fashion, bumbled, “Well, well, well, well, you old hell-hound, you old devil, how are you, anyway?  You old horse-thief, maybe it ain’t good to see you again!” While Sam nodded at her over Kennicott’s shoulder, she was embarrassed.

“Perhaps I should never have gone away.  I’m out of practise in lying.  I wish they would get it over!  Just a block more and—­my baby!”

They were home.  She brushed past the welcoming Aunt Bessie and knelt by Hugh.  As he stammered, “O mummy, mummy, don’t go away!  Stay with me, mummy!” she cried, “No, I’ll never leave you again!”

He volunteered, “That’s daddy.”

“By golly, he knows us just as if we’d never been away!” said Kennicott.  “You don’t find any of these California kids as bright as he is, at his age!”

When the trunk came they piled about Hugh the bewhiskered little wooden men fitting one inside another, the miniature junk, and the Oriental drum, from San Francisco Chinatown; the blocks carved by the old Frenchman in San Diego; the lariat from San Antonio.

“Will you forgive mummy for going away?  Will you?” she whispered.

Absorbed in Hugh, asking a hundred questions about him—­had he had any colds? did he still dawdle over his oatmeal? what about unfortunate morning incidents? she viewed Aunt Bessie only as a source of information, and was able to ignore her hint, pointed by a coyly shaken finger, “Now that you’ve had such a fine long trip and spent so much money and all, I hope you’re going to settle down and be satisfied and not——­”