ion--the look that Samuel's face had worn when first he ushered
Blossy into his tidy, little home and murmured huskily:

"Mis' Darby, yew're master o' the vessel naow; I'm jest fo'castle hand."

Forgetting all his aches, his pains, his resentments, Samuel took a
peppermint-lozenge out of his pocket, rolled it under his tongue, and
walked on. Presently, as he saw the light of the clearing through the
trees, he broke into a run,--an old man's trot,--thus proving
conclusively that his worry of lumbago and chilblains had been merely a
wrongly diagnosed case of homesickness.

He grinned as he pictured Abe's dismay on returning to the Station to
find him gone. Still, he reflected, maybe Abe would have a better time
alone with the young fellows; he had grown so plagued young himself all
of a sudden. Samuel surely need not worry about him.

More and more good-natured grew Samuel's face, until a sociable rabbit,
peeping at him from behind a bush, decided to run a race with the old
gentleman, and hopped fearlessly out into the open.

"Ah, yew young rascal!" cried Samuel. "Yew're the feller that eat up all
my winter cabbages."

At this uncanny reading of his mind, Mr. Cottontail darted off into the
woods again to seek out his mate and inform her that their guilt had
been discovered.

Finally, Samuel came to the break in the woodland, an open field of rye,
green as springtime grass, and his own exquisitely neat abode beckoning
across the gray rail-fence to him.

How pretty Blossy's geraniums looked in the sitting-room windows! Even
at this distance, too, he could see that she had not forgotten to water
his pet abutilon and begonias. How welcome in the midst of this flurry
of snow--how welcome to his eye was that smoke coming out of the
chimneys! All the distress of his trip away from home seemed worth while
now for the joy of coming back.

Before he had taken down the fence-rail and turned into the path which
led to his back door, he was straining his ears for the sound of
Blossy's voice gossiping with Angy. Not hearing it, he hurried the
faster.

The kitchen door was locked. The key was not under the mat; it was not
in the safe on the porch, behind the stone pickle-pot. He tried the door
again, and then peered in at the window.

Not even the cat could be discerned. The kitchen was set in order, the
breakfast dishes put away, and there was no sign of any baking or
preparations for dinner.

He knocked, knocked loudly.