At last I reached your old
number, Stevie, and--Hey? Did you speak?"
"Don't call me 'Stevie,'" growled his nephew, rebelliously.
"Beg your pardon. I keep forgettin' that you're almost grown up. Well,
as I was sayin', I got to the house where you used to live, and 'twas
shut tight. Nobody there. Ho! ho! I felt a good deal like old Beriah
Doane must have on his last 'vacation.' You see, Beriah is one of our
South Denboro notorieties; he's famous in his way. He works and loafs
by spells until cranberry pickin' time in the fall; then he picks steady
and earns thirty or forty dollars all at once. Soon's he's paid off, he
starts for Boston on a 'vacation,' an alcoholic one. Well, last fall
his married sister was visitin' him, and she, bein' strong for good
Templarism, was determined he shouldn't vacate in his regular way. So
she telegraphed her husband's brother in Brockton to meet Beriah there,
go with him to Boston, and see that he behaved himself and stayed sober.
Beriah heard of it, and when his train gets as far as Tremont what does
he do but get off quiet and change cars for New Bedford. He hadn't been
there for nine years, but he had pleasant memories of his last visit.
And when he does get to New Bedford, chucklin' over the way he's
befooled his sister and her folks, I'm blessed if he didn't find that
the town had gone no-license, and every saloon was shut up! Ho! ho! ho!
Well, I felt about the way he did, I guess, when I stood on the steps
of your Fifth Avenue house and realized you'd gone away.
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