That's what she said. 'I never heard of such a crazy cruise,' she says. ' Startin' off to visit folks when you haven't the least idea where they live!' 'Oh, yes, I have,' I says, 'I know where they live; they live in New York.' Well, you ought to have seen her face. Abbie's a good woman--none better--but she generally don't notice a joke until she trips over it. I get consider'ble fun out of Abbie, take her by the large. 'New York!' she says.
'Did anybody ever hear the beat of that? Do you cal'late New York's like South Denboro, where everybody knows everybody else?
What are you plannin' to do? run up the fust man, woman or child you meet and ask 'em to tell you where 'Bijah Warren lives? Or are you goin' to trot from Dan to Beersheby, trustin' to meet your nephew and niece on the way? I never in my born days!'
"Well," went on the captain, "I told her that the last suggestion weren't such a bad one, but there was one little objection to it.
Considerin' that I hadn't ever laid eyes on Steve and that Ihadn't seen you since you was a baby, the chances was against my recognizin' you if we did meet. Ho, ho, ho! Finally I hinted that I might look in the directory, and she got more reconciled to my startin'. Honest, I do believe she'd have insisted on takin' me by the hand and leadin' me to you, if I hadn't told her that.
"So I did look in the directory and got the number on Fifth Avenue where you used to be. I asked a policeman the nighest way to get there, and he said take a bus. Last time I was in New York I rode in one of those Fifth Avenue omnibuses, and I never got such a jouncin' in my life. The pavement then was round cobble stones, like some of the roads in Nantucket. I remember I tried to ask a feller that set next to me somethin' or other, and I swan to man Icouldn't get nothin' out of my mouth but rattles. 'Metropolitan Museum,' sounded like puttin' in a ton of coal. I thought I was comin' apart, or my works was out of order, or somethin', but when the feller tried to answer he rattled just as bad, so I realized 'twas the reg'lar disease and felt some better. I never shall forget a fleshy woman--somethin' like that Mrs. Dunn friend of yours, Caroline--that set opposite me. It give me the crawls to look at her, her chins shook around so. Ho! ho! she had no less'n three of 'em, and they all shook different ways. Ho! ho! ho! If I'd been in the habit of wearin' false hair or teeth or anything that wa'n't growed to or buttoned on me I'd never have risked a trip in one of those omnibuses.
"So when the police officer prescribed one for me this v'yage, Iwas some dubious. I'm older'n I was ten year ago, and I wa'n't sure that I'd hold together. I cal'lated walkin' was better for my health. So I found Fifth Avenue and started to walk. And the farther I walked the heavier that blessed satchel of mine got. It weighed maybe ten or twelve pounds at the corner of 42nd Street, but when I got as far as the open square where the gilt woman is hurryin' to keep from bein' run over by Gen'ral Sherman on horseback--that statue, you know--I wouldn't have let that blessed bag go for less'n two ton, if I was sellin' it by weight. So Ileaned up against an electric light pole to rest and sort of get my bearin's. Then I noticed what I'd ought to have seen afore, that the street wa'n't paved with cobbles, as it used to be, but was smooth as a stretch of state road down home. So I figgered that a bus was a safe risk, after all. I waited ten minutes or more for one to come, and finally I asked a woman who was in tow of an astrakhan-trimmed dog at the end of a chain, if the omnibuses had stopped runnin'. When I fust see the dog leadin' her I thought she was blind, but I guess she was deef and dumb instead. Anyhow, all she said was 'Ugh!' not very enthusiastic, at that, and went along.
Ho! ho! So then I asked a man, and he pointed to a bus right in front of me. You see, I was lookin' for the horses, same as they used to be, and this was an automobile.
"I blushed, I guess, just to show that there was some red underneath the green, and climbed aboard the omnibus. I rode along for a spell, admirin' as much of the scenery as I could see between the women's hats, then I told the skipper of the thing that I wanted to make port at 82nd Street. He said 'Ugh,' apparently suff'rin' from the same complaint the dog woman had, and we went on and on. At last I got kind of anxious and asked him again.
"'Eighty-second!' says he, ugly. 'This is Ninety-first.'
"'Good land!' says I. 'I wanted Eighty-second.'
"'Why didn't you say so?' says he, lookin' as if I'd stole his mother's spoons.
"'I did,' says I.
"'You DID?' he snarls. 'You did not! If you did, wouldn't I have heard you?'
"Well, any answer I'd be likely to make to that would have meant more argument, and the bus was sailin' right along at the time, so I piled out and did some more walkin', the other way. At last Ireached 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.