Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/34

28 Mr. Carson laughed in a quiet and yet much amused way and said:

"You must learn to not do anything until you are good and ready, and there are heaps of things to do before we can start out. Now let's go and see Mrs. Becket."

So I piloted him to the widow's home, which, as near as I can remember, was about four blocks from the hotel.

Mr. Carson being able to speak French first-rate, had a talk with Mrs. Becket concerning me. The story she told him, corresponding with that which I had told him, he concluded that I had given him nothing but truth, and then he asked Mrs. Becket what my bill was. She replied that she had just taken me in because I was a poor boy, until such time as I could find employment, and that her charges were nothing. He then asked her how long I had been with her, and being told that it was four days, he begged her to take five dollars, which she finally accepted.

I took my little budget of clothes and tearfully bidding Mrs. Becket and Henry good-bye, started back to the hotel with my new guardian, and I was the happiest boy in the world, from that on, so long as I was a boy.