Chester did the chores with unusual vim that night. His lips were set
and there was an air of resolution as plainly visible on his small,
freckled face as if it had been stamped there. Mrs. Elwell saw him
flying around, and her grim features took on a still grimmer
expression.
"Ches is mighty lively tonight," she muttered. "I s'pose he's in a gog
to be off on some foolishness with Henry Wilson. Well, he won't, and
he needn't think it."
Lige Barton, the hired man, also thought this was Chester's purpose,
but he took a more lenient view of it than did Mrs. Elwell.
"The little chap is going through things with a rush this evening," he
reflected. "Guess he's laying out for a bit of fun with the Wilson
boy."
But Chester was not planning anything connected with Henry Wilson, who
lived on the other side of the pond and was the only chum he
possessed. After the chores were done, he lingered a little while
around the barns, getting his courage keyed up to the necessary pitch.
Chester Stephens was an orphan without kith or kin in the world,
unless his father's stepsister, Mrs. Harriet Elwell, could be called
so. His parents had died in his babyhood, and Mrs. Elwell had taken
him to bring up. She was a harsh woman, with a violent temper, and she
had scolded and worried the boy all his short life. Upton people said
it was a shame, but nobody felt called upon to interfere. Mrs. Elwell
was not a person one would care to make an enemy of.
She eyed Chester sourly when he went in, expecting some request to be
allowed to go with Henry, and prepared to refuse it sharply.
"Aunt Harriet," said Chester suddenly, "can I go to school this year?
It begins tomorrow."
"No," said Mrs. Elwell, when she had recovered from her surprise at
this unexpected question. "You've had schoolin' in plenty--more'n I
ever had, and all you're goin' to get!"
"But, Aunt Harriet," persisted Chester, his face flushed with
earnestness, "I'm nearly thirteen, and I can barely read and write a
little. The other boys are ever so far ahead of me. I don't know
anything."
"You know enough to be disrespectful!" exclaimed Mrs. Elwell. "I
suppose you want to go to school to idle away your time, as you do at
home--lazy good-for-nothing that you are!" Chester thought of the
drudgery that had been his portion all his life. He resented being
called lazy when he was willing enough to work, but he made one more
appeal.
"If you'll let me go to school this year, I'll work twice as hard out
of school to make up for it--indeed, I will. Do let me go, Aunt
Harriet. I haven't been to school a day for over a year."
"Let's hear no more of this nonsense," said Mrs. Elwell, taking a
bottle from the shelf above her with the air of one who closes a
discussion. "Here, run down to the Bridge and get me this bottle full
of vinegar at Jacob's store. Be smart, too, d'ye hear! I ain't going
to have you idling around the Bridge neither. If you ain't back in
twenty minutes, it won't be well for you."
Chester did his errand at the Bridge with a heart full of bitter
disappointment and anger.
"I won't stand it any longer!" he muttered. "I'll run away--I don't
care where, so long as it's away from her. I wish I could get out West
on the harvest excursions."
On his return home, as he crossed the yard in the dusk, he stumbled
over a stick of wood and fell. The bottle of vinegar slipped from his
hand and was broken on the doorstep. Mrs. Elwell saw the accident from
the window. She rushed out and jerked the unlucky lad to his feet.
"Take that, you sulky little cub!" she exclaimed, cuffing his ears
soundly. "I'll teach you to break and spill things you're sent for!
You did it on purpose. Get off to bed with you this instant."
Chester crept off to his garret chamber with a very sullen face. He
was too used to being sent to bed without any supper to care much for
that, although he was hungry. But his whole being was in a tumult of
rebellion over the injustice that was meted out to him.
"I won't stand it!" he muttered over and over again. "I'll run away. I
won't stay here."
To talk of running away was one thing. To do it without a cent in your
pocket or a place to run to was another. But Chester had a great deal
of determination in his make-up when it was fairly roused, and his
hard upbringing had made him older and shrewder than his years. He lay
awake late that night, thinking out ways and means, but could arrive
at no satisfactory conclusion.
The next day Mrs. Elwell said, "Ches, Abner Stearns wants you to go up
there for a fortnight while Tom Bixby is away, and drive the milk
wagon of mornings and do the chores for Mrs. Stearns. You might as
well put in the time 'fore harvest that way as any other. So hustle
off--and mind you behave yourself."
Chester heard the news gladly. He had not yet devised any feasible
plan for running away, and he always liked to work at the Stearns'
place. To be sure, Mrs. Elwell received all the money he earned, but
Mrs. Stearns was kind to him, and though he had to work hard and
constantly, he was well fed and well treated by all.
The following fortnight was a comparatively happy one for the lad.
But he did not forget his purpose of shaking the dust of Upton from
his feet as soon as possible, and he cudgelled his brains trying to
find a way.
On the evening when he left the Stearns' homestead, Mr. Stearns paid
him for his fortnight's work, much to the boy's surprise, for Mrs.
Elwell had always insisted that all such money should be paid directly
to her. Chester found himself the possessor of four dollars--an amount
of riches that almost took away his breath. He had never in his whole
life owned more than ten cents at a time. As he tramped along the road
home, he kept his hand in his pocket, holding fast to the money, as if
he feared it would otherwise dissolve into thin air.
His mind was firmly made up. He would run away once and for all. This
money was rightly his; he had earned every cent of it. It would surely
last him until he found employment elsewhere. At any rate, he would
go; and even if he starved, he would never come back to Aunt
Harriet's!
When he reached home, he found Mrs. Elwell in an unusual state of
worry. Lige had given warning--and this on the verge of harvest!
"Did Stearns say anything about coming down tomorrow to pay me for
your work?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. He didn't say a word about it," said Chester boldly.
"Well, I hope he will. Take yourself off to bed, Ches. I'm sick of
seeing you standing there, on one foot or t'other, like a gander."
Chester had been shifting about uneasily. He realized that, if his
project did not miscarry, he would not see his aunt again, and his
heart softened to her. Harsh as she was, she was the only protector he
had ever known, and the boy had a vague wish to carry away with him
some kindly word or look from her. Such, however, was not
forthcoming, and Chester obeyed her command and took himself off to
the garret. Here he sat down and reflected on his plans.
He must go that very night. When Mr. Stearns failed to appear on the
morrow, Mrs. Elwell was quite likely to march up and demand the amount
of Chester's wages. It would all come out then, and he would lose his
money--besides, no doubt, getting severely punished into the bargain.
His preparations did not take long. He had nothing to carry with him.
The only decent suit of clothes he possessed was his well-worn Sunday
one. This he put on, carefully stowing away in his pocket the precious
four dollars.
He had to wait until he thought his aunt was asleep, and it was about
eleven when he crept downstairs, his heart quaking within him, and got
out by the porch window. When he found himself alone in the clear
moonlight of the August night, a sense of elation filled his cramped
little heart. He was free, and he would never come back here--never!
"Wisht I could have seen Henry to say good-by to him, though," he
muttered with a wistful glance at the big house across the pond where
the unconscious Henry was sleeping soundly with never a thought of
moonlight flittings for anyone in his curly head.
Chester meant to walk to Roxbury Station ten miles away. Nobody knew
him there, and he could catch the morning train. Late as it was, he
kept to fields and wood-roads lest he might be seen and recognized. It
was three o'clock when he reached Roxbury, and he knew the train did
not pass through until six. With the serenity of a philosopher who is
starting out to win his way in the world and means to make the best of
things, Chester curled himself up in the hollow space of a big lumber
pile behind the station, and so tired was he that he fell soundly
asleep in a few minutes.
* * * * *
Chester was awakened by the shriek of the express at the last crossing
before the station. In a panic of haste he scrambled out of his lumber
and dashed into the station house, where a sleepy, ill-natured agent
stood behind the ticket window. He looked sharply enough at the
freckled, square-jawed boy who asked for a second-class ticket to
Belltown. Chester's heart quaked within him at the momentary thought
that the ticket agent recognized him. He had an agonized vision of
being collared without ceremony and haled straightway back to Aunt
Harriet. When the ticket and his change were pushed out to him, he
snatched them and fairly ran.
"Bolted as if the police were after him," reflected the agent, who did
not sell many tickets and so had time to take a personal interest in
the purchasers thereof. "I've seen that youngster before, though I
can't recollect where. He's got a most fearful determined look."
Chester drew an audible sigh of relief when the train left the
station. He was fairly off now and felt that he could defy even
curious railway officials.
It was not his first train ride, for Mrs. Elwell had once taken him to
Belltown to get an aching tooth extracted, but it was certainly his
first under such exhilarating circumstances, and he meant to enjoy it.
To be sure, he was very hungry, but that, he reflected, was only what
he would probably be many times before he made his fortune, and it was
just as well to get used to it. Meanwhile, it behooved him to keep his
eyes open. On the road from Roxbury to Belltown there was not much to
be seen that morning that Chester did not see.
The train reached Belltown about noon. He did not mean to stop long
there--it was too near Upton. From the conductor on the train, he
found that a boat left Belltown for Montrose at two in the afternoon.
Montrose was a hundred miles from Upton, and Chester thought he would
be safe there. To Montrose, accordingly, he decided to go, but the
first thing was to get some dinner. He went into a grocery store and
bought some crackers and a bit of cheese. He had somewhere picked up
the idea that crackers and cheese were about as economical food as you
could find for adventurous youths starting out on small capital.
He found his way to the only public square Belltown boasted, and
munched his food hungrily on a bench under the trees. He would go to
Montrose and there find something to do. Later on he would gradually
work his way out West, where there was more room for an ambitious
small boy to expand and grow. Chester dreamed some dazzling dreams as
he sat there on the bench under the Belltown chestnuts. Passers-by, if
they noticed him at all, saw merely a rather small, poorly clad boy,
with a great many freckles, a square jaw and shrewd, level-gazing grey
eyes. But this same lad was mapping out a very brilliant future for
himself as people passed him heedlessly by. He would get out West,
somehow or other, some time or other, and make a fortune. Then,
perhaps, he would go back to Upton for a visit and shine in his
splendour before all his old neighbours. It all seemed very easy and
alluring, sitting there in the quiet little Belltown square. Chester,
you see, possessed imagination. That, together with the crackers and
cheese, so cheered him up that he felt ready for anything. He was
aroused from a dream of passing Aunt Harriet by in lofty scorn and a
glittering carriage, by the shrill whistle of the boat. Chester
pocketed his remaining crackers and cheese and his visions also, and
was once more his alert, wide-awake self. He had inquired the way to
the wharf from the grocer, so he found no difficulty in reaching it.
When the boat steamed down the muddy little river, Chester was on
board of her.
He was glad to be out of Belltown, for he was anything but sure that
he would not encounter some Upton people as long as he was in it. They
often went to Belltown on business, but never to Montrose.
There were not many passengers on the boat, and Chester scrutinized
them all so sharply in turn that he could have sworn to each and every
one of them for years afterwards had it been necessary. The one he
liked best was a middle-aged lady who sat just before him on the
opposite side of the deck She was plump and motherly looking, with a
fresh, rosy face and beaming blue eyes.
"If I was looking for anyone to adopt me I'd pick her," said Chester
to himself. The more he looked at her, the better he liked her. He
labelled her in his mind as "the nice, rosy lady."
The nice, rosy lady noticed Chester staring at her after awhile. She
smiled promptly at him--a smile that seemed fairly to irradiate her
round face--and then began fumbling in an old-fashioned reticule she
carried, and from which she presently extracted a chubby little paper
bag.
"If you like candy, little boy," she said to Chester, "here is some of
my sugar taffy for you."
Chester did not exactly like being called a little boy. But her voice
and smile were irresistible and won his heart straightway. He took the
candy with a shy, "Thank you, ma'am," and sat holding it in his hand.
"Eat it," commanded the rosy lady authoritatively. "That is what taffy
is for, you know."
So Chester ate it. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted
in his life, and filled a void which even the crackers and cheese had
left vacant. The rosy lady watched every mouthful he ate as if she
enjoyed it more than he did. When he had finished the taffy she smiled
one of her sociable smiles again and said, "Well, what do you think of
it?"
"It's the nicest taffy I ever ate," answered Chester enthusiastically,
as if he were a connoisseur in all kinds of taffies. The rosy lady
nodded, well pleased.
"That is just what everyone says about my sugar taffy. Nobody up our
way can match it, though goodness knows they try hard enough. My
great-grandmother invented the recipe herself, and it has been in our
family ever since. I'm real glad you liked it."
She smiled at him again, as if his appreciation of her taffy was a
bond of good fellowship between them. She did not know it but,
nevertheless, she was filling the heart of a desperate small boy, who
had run away from home, with hope and encouragement and self-reliance.
If there were such kind folks as this in the world, why, he would get
along all right. The rosy lady's smiles and taffy--the smiles much
more than the taffy--went far to thaw out of him a certain hardness
and resentfulness against people in general that Aunt Harriet's harsh
treatment had instilled into him. Chester instantly made a resolve
that when he grew stout and rosy and prosperous he would dispense
smiles and taffy and good cheer generally to all forlorn small boys on
boats and trains.
It was almost dark when they reached Montrose. Chester lost sight of
the rosy lady when they left the boat, and it gave him a lonesome
feeling; but he could not indulge in that for long at a time. Here he
was at his destination--at dark, in a strange city a hundred miles
from home.
"The first thing is to find somewhere to sleep," he said to himself,
resolutely declining to feel frightened, although the temptation was
very strong.
Montrose was not really a very big place. It was only a bustling
little town of some twenty thousand inhabitants, but to Chester's eyes
it was a vast metropolis. He had never been in any place bigger than
Belltown, and in Belltown you could see one end of it, at least, no
matter where you were. Montrose seemed endless to Chester as he stood
at the head of Water Street and gazed in bewilderment along one of its
main business avenues--a big, glittering, whirling place where one
small boy could so easily be swallowed up that he would never be heard
of again.
Chester, after paying his fare to Montrose and buying his cheese and
crackers, had just sixty cents left. This must last him until he found
work, so that the luxury of lodgings was out of the question, even if
he had known where to look for them. To be sure, there were benches in
a public square right in front of him; but Chester was afraid that if
he curled up on one of them for the night, a policeman might question
him, and he did not believe he could give a very satisfactory account
of himself. In his perplexity, he thought of his cosy lumber pile at
Roxbury Station and remembered that when he had left the boat he had
noticed a large vacant lot near the wharf which was filled with piles
of lumber. Back to this he went and soon succeeded in finding a place
to stow himself. His last waking thought was that he must be up and
doing bright and early the next morning, and that it must surely be
longer than twenty-four hours since he had crept downstairs and out of
Aunt Harriet's porch window at Upton.
* * * * *
Montrose seemed less alarming by daylight, which was not so
bewildering as the blinking electric lights. Chester was up betimes,
ate the last of his cheese and crackers and started out at once to
look for work. He determined to be thorough, and he went straight into
every place of business he came to, from a blacksmith's forge to a
department store, and boldly asked the first person he met if they
wanted a boy there. There was, however, one class of places Chester
shunned determinedly. He never went into a liquor saloon. The last
winter he had been allowed to go to school in Upton, his teacher had
been a pale, patient little woman who hated the liquor traffic with
all her heart. She herself had suffered bitterly through it, and she
instilled into her pupils a thorough aversion to it. Chester would
have chosen death by starvation before he would have sought for
employment in a liquor saloon. But there certainly did not seem room
for him anywhere else. Nobody wanted a boy. The answer to his question
was invariably "No." As the day wore on, Chester's hopes and courage
went down to zero, but he still tramped doggedly about. He would be
thorough, at least. Surely somewhere in this big place, where everyone
seemed so busy, there must be something for him to do.
Once there seemed a chance of success. He had gone into a big
provision store and asked the clerk behind the counter if they wanted
a boy.
"Well, we do," said the clerk, looking him over critically, "but I
hardly think you'll fill the bill. However, come in and see the boss."
He took Chester into a dark, grimy little inner office where a fat,
stubby man was sitting before a desk with his feet upon it.
"Hey? What!" he said when the clerk explained. "Looking for the place?
Why, sonny, you're not half big enough."
"Oh, I'm a great deal bigger than I look," cried Chester breathlessly.
"That is, sir--I mean I'm ever so much stronger than I look. I'll work
hard, sir, ever so hard--and I'll grow."
The fat, stubby man roared with laughter. What was grim earnest to
poor Chester was a joke to him.
"No doubt you will, my boy," he said genially, "but I'm afraid you'll
hardly grow fast enough to suit us. Boys aren't like pigweed, you
know. No, no, our boy must be a big, strapping fellow of eighteen or
nineteen. He'll have a deal of heavy lifting to do."
Chester went out of the store with a queer choking in his throat. For
one horrible moment he thought he was going to cry--he, Chester
Stephens, who had run away from home to do splendid things! A nice
ending that would be to his fine dreams! He thrust his hands into his
pockets and strode along the street, biting his lips fiercely. He
would not cry--no, he would not! And he _would_ find work!
Chester did not cry, but neither, alas, did he find work. He parted
with ten cents of his precious hoard for more crackers, and he spend
the night again in the lumber yard.
Perhaps I'll have better luck tomorrow, he thought hopefully.
But it really seemed as if there were to be no luck for Chester except
bad luck. Day after day passed and, although he tramped resolutely
from street to street and visited every place that seemed to offer any
chance, he could get no employment. In spite of his pluck, his heart
began to fail him.
At the end of a week Chester woke up among his lumber to a realization
that he was at the end of his resources. He had just five cents left
out of the four dollars that were to have been the key to his fortune.
He sat gloomily on the wall of his sleeping apartment and munched the
one solitary cracker he had left. It must carry him through the day
unless he got work. The five cents must be kept for some dire
emergency.
He started uptown rather aimlessly. In his week's wanderings he had
come to know the city very well and no longer felt confused with its
size and bustle. He envied every busy boy he saw. Back in Upton he had
sometimes resented the fact that he was kept working continually and
was seldom allowed an hour off. Now he was burdened with spare time.
It certainly did not seem as if things were fairly divided, he
thought. And then he thought no more just then, for one of the queer
spells in his head came on. He had experienced them at intervals
during the last three days. Something seemed to break loose in his
head and spin wildly round and round, while houses and people and
trees danced and wobbled all about him. Chester vaguely wondered if
this could be what Aunt Harriet had been wont to call a "judgement."
But then, he had done nothing very bad--nothing that would warrant a
judgement, he thought. It was surely no harm to run away from a place
where you were treated so bad and where they did not seem to want you.
Chester felt bitter whenever he thought of Aunt Harriet.
Presently he found himself in the market square of Montrose. It was
market day, and the place was thronged with people from the
surrounding country settlements. Chester had hoped that he might pick
up a few cents, holding a horse or cow for somebody or carrying a
market basket, but no such chance offered itself. He climbed up on
some bales of pressed hay in one corner and sat there moodily; there
was dejection in the very dangle of his legs over the bales. Chester,
you see, was discovering what many a boy before him has
discovered--that it is a good deal easier to sit down and make a
fortune in dreams than it is to go out into the world and make it.
Two men were talking to each other near him. At first Chester gave no
heed to their conversation, but presently a sentence made him prick up
his ears.
"Yes, there's a pretty fair crop out at Hopedale," one man was saying,
"but whether it's going to be got in in good shape is another matter.
It's terrible hard to get any help. Every spare man-jack far and wide
has gone West on them everlasting harvest excursions. Salome Whitney
at the Mount Hope Farm is in a predicament. She's got a hired man, but
he can't harvest grain all by himself. She spent the whole of
yesterday driving around, trying to get a couple of men or boys to
help him, but I dunno if she got anyone or not."
The men moved out of earshot at this juncture, but Chester got down
from the bales with a determined look. If workers were wanted in
Hopedale, that was the place for him. He had done a man's work at
harvest time in Upton the year before. Lige Barton had said so
himself. Hope and courage returned with a rush.
He accosted the first man he met and asked if he could tell him the
way to Hopedale.
"Reckon I can, sonny. I live in the next district. Want to go there?
If you wait till evening, I can give you a lift part of the way. It's
five miles out."
"Thank you, sir," said Chester firmly, "but I must go at once if
you'll kindly direct me. It's important."
"Well, it's a straight road. That's Albemarle Street down
there--follow it till it takes you out to the country, and then keep
straight on till you come to a church painted yellow and white. Turn
to your right, and over the hill is Hopedale. But you'd better wait
for me. You don't look fit to walk five miles."
But Chester was off. Walk five miles! Pooh! He could walk twenty with
hope to lure him on. Albemarle Street finally frayed off into a real
country road. Chester was glad to find himself out in the country once
more, with the great golden fields basking on either side and the
wooded hills beyond, purple with haze. He had grown to hate the town
with its cold, unheeding faces. It was good to breathe clear air again
and feel the soft, springy soil of the ferny roadside under his tired
little feet.
Long before the five miles were covered, Chester began to wonder if he
would hold out to the end of them. He had to stop and rest frequently,
when those queer dizzy spells came on. His feet seemed like lead. But
he kept doggedly on. He would not give in now! The white and yellow
church was the most welcome sight that had ever met his eyes.
Over the hill he met a man and inquired the way to Mount Hope Farm.
Fortunately, it was nearby. At the gate Chester had to stop again to
recover from his dizziness.
He liked the look of the place, with its great, comfortable barns and
quaint, roomy old farmhouse, all set down in a trim quadrangle of
beeches and orchards. There was an appearance of peace and prosperity
about it.
If only Miss Salome Whitney will hire me! thought Chester wistfully,
as he crept up the slope. I'm afraid she'll say I'm too small. Wisht I
could stretch three inches all at once. Wisht I wasn't so dizzy.
Wisht--
What Chester's third wish was will never be known, for just as he
reached the kitchen door the worst dizzy spell of all came on. Trees,
barns, well-sweep, all whirled around him with the speed of wind. He
reeled and fell, a limp, helpless little body, on Miss Salome
Whitney's broad, spotless sandstone doorstep.
* * * * *
In the Mount Hope kitchen Miss Salome was at that moment deep in
discussion with her "help" over the weighty question of how the
damsons were to be preserved. Miss Salome wanted them boiled;
Clemantiny Bosworth, the help, insisted that they ought to be baked.
Clemantiny was always very positive. She had "bossed" Miss Salome for
years, and both knew that in the end the damsons would be baked, but
the argument had to be carried out for dignity's sake.
"They're so sour when they're baked," protested Miss Salome.
"Well, you don't want damsons sweet, do you?" retorted Clemantiny
scornfully. "That's the beauty of damsons--their tartness. And they
keep ever so much better baked, Salome--you know they do. My
grandmother _always_ baked hers, and they would keep for three years."
Miss Salome knew that when Clemantiny dragged her grandmother into the
question, it was time to surrender. Beyond that, dignity degenerated
into stubbornness. It would be useless to say that she did not want to
keep her damsons for three years, and that she was content to eat them
up and trust to Providence for the next year's supply.
"Well, well, bake them then," she said placidly. "I don't suppose it
makes much difference one way or another. Only, I insist--what was
that noise, Clemantiny? It sounded like something falling against the
porch door."
"It's that worthless dog of Martin's, I suppose," said Clemantiny,
grasping a broom handle with a grimness that boded ill for the dog.
"Mussing up my clean doorstep with his dirty paws again. I'll fix
him!"
Clemantiny swept out through the porch and jerked open the door. There
was a moment's silence. Then Miss Salome heard her say, "For the
land's sake! Salome Whitney, come here."
What Miss Salome saw when she hurried out was a white-faced boy
stretched on the doorstep at Clemantiny's feet.
"Is he dead?" she gasped.
"Dead? No," sniffed Clemantiny. "He's fainted, that's what he is.
Where on earth did he come from? He ain't a Hopedale boy."
"He must be carried right in," exclaimed Miss Salome in distress.
"Why, he may die there. He must be very ill."
"Looks more to me as if he had fainted from sheer starvation,"
returned Clemantiny brusquely as she picked him up in her lean,
muscular arms. "Why, he's skin and bone. He ain't hardly heavier than
a baby. Well, this is a mysterious piece of work. Where'll I put him?"
"Lay him on the sofa," said Miss Salome as soon as she had recovered
from the horror into which Clemantiny's starvation dictum had thrown
her. A child starving to death on her doorstep! "What do you do for
people in a faint, Clemantiny?"
"Wet their face--and hist up their feet--and loosen their collar,"
said Clemantiny in a succession of jerks, doing each thing as she
mentioned it. "And hold ammonia to their nose. Run for the ammonia,
Salome. Look, will you? Skin and bone!"
But Miss Salome had gone for the ammonia. There was a look on the
boy's thin, pallid face that tugged painfully at her heart-strings.
When Chester came back to consciousness with the pungency of the
ammonia reeking through his head, he found himself lying on very soft
pillows in a very big white sunny kitchen, where everything was
scoured to a brightness that dazzled you. Bending over him was a tall,
gaunt woman with a thin, determined face and snapping black eyes, and,
standing beside her with a steaming bowl in her hand, was the nice
rosy lady who had given him the taffy on the boat!
When he opened his eyes, Miss Salome knew him.
"Why, it's the little boy I saw on the boat!" she exclaimed.
"Well, you've come to!" said Clemantiny, eyeing Chester severely. "And
now perhaps you'll explain what you mean by fainting away on doorsteps
and scaring people out of their senses."
Chester thought that this must be the mistress of Mount Hope Farm, and
hastened to propitiate her.
"I'm sorry," he faltered feebly. "I didn't mean to--I--"
"You're not to do any talking until you've had something to eat,"
snapped Clemantiny inconsistently. "Here, open your mouth and take
this broth. Pretty doings, I say!"
Clemantiny spoke as sharply as Aunt Harriet had ever done, but somehow
or other Chester did not feel afraid of her and her black eyes. She
sat down by his side and fed him from the bowl of hot broth with a
deft gentleness oddly in contrast with her grim expression.
Chester thought he had never in all his life tasted anything so good
as that broth. The boy was really almost starved. He drank every drop
of it. Clemantiny gave a grunt of satisfaction as she handed the empty
bowl and spoon to the silent, smiling Miss Salome.
"Now, who are you and what do you want?" she said.
Chester had been expecting this question, and while coming along the
Hopedale road he had thought out an answer to it. He began now,
speaking the words slowly and gaspingly, as if reciting a hastily
learned lesson.
"My name is Chester Benson. I belong to Upton up the country. My folks
are dead and I came to Montrose to look for work, I've been there a
week and couldn't get anything to do. I heard a man say that you
wanted men to help in the harvest, so I came out to see if you'd hire
me."
In spite of his weakness, Chester's face turned very red before he got
to the end of his speech. He was new to deception. To be sure, there
was not, strictly speaking, an untrue word in it. As for his name, it
was Chester Benson Stephens. But for all that, Chester could not have
felt or looked more guilty if he had been telling an out-and-out
falsehood at every breath.
"Humph!" said Clemantiny in a dissatisfied tone. "What on earth do you
suppose a midget like you can do in the harvest field? And we don't
want any more help, anyway. We've got enough."
Chester grew sick with disappointment. But at this moment Miss Salome
spoke up.
"No, we haven't, Clemantiny. We want another hand, and I'll hire you,
Chester--that's your name, isn't it? I'll give you good wages, too."
"Now, Salome!" protested Clemantiny.