Page:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu/158

Rh him in on the back seat of the automobile. The rest of us perched on the front seat and the running-board, trying to conceal our strange appearance from the staring of quite a crowd which was gathering, as it was just ferry-time.

Our man said, "17 Luke Street, and go carefully." It surprised us for a second to hear him say our address as if he'd known it always, but then we realized that he had known it for quite a long time.

I think none of us will ever forget the way the house looked as we swung around the corner and came up Luke Street. Just the end of the gable first, behind the two big beeches in the front garden,—oh, we had n't seen it for years and centuries,—and then the living-room windows open, with the curtains blowing, and the little box-bush that grows in a fat jar on the porch-steps. Mother was coming out at the front door, and she looked just the way 140