Two more hedge hogs last night, but Samba let 'em alone." Sambo had got his mouth sored by hedge hogs some time before and had learned better than to have any fuss with them.
When they set out in the morning Samson was wont to say to the little lad, who generally sat beside him: "Well, my boy, what's the good word this morning ?" Whereupon Joe would say, parrot like: "God help us all and make His face to shine upon us." "Well said!" his father would answer, and so the day's journey began.
Often, near its end, they came to some lonely farmhouse.

Always Samson would stop and go to the door to ask about the roads, followed by little Joe and Betsey with secret hopes.

One of these hopes was related to cookies and maple sugar and buttered bread and had been cherished since an hour of good fortune early in the trip and encouraged by sundry good-hearted women along the road.

Another was the hope of seeing a baby--mainly, it should be said, the hope of Betsey.

Joe's interest was merely an echo of hers.