AWAKENED AT MIDNIGHT.
The next morning Mrs. Dustin was greatly surprised on coming down-stairs
to find that no fire had been made in the kitchen stove, and that the
water-buckets, standing on a shelf over the sink, were empty. Nothing of
this kind had happened since Arthur and Uncle Phin came there to live,
nearly two months before; for to light the fire and bring fresh water
into the house were among the very first of Uncle Phin’s morning duties.
Arthur had meant to get up very early this morning and do these things,
with a vague hope that the old negro’s absence might not be noticed; but
he was so thoroughly exhausted by the events of the preceding day and
night, that he overslept and only awoke with a start as his Aunt Nancy
entered the kitchen.
Now, wide-awake, the boy lay trembling in bed and wondered what would
happen. He heard his aunt go out to the barn and call “Phin! Uncle
Phin!” but there was no answer, though the call was repeated several
times. Then she came back muttering something about “lazy and worthless
old niggers,” and Arthur heard her making the fire. Still anxious to
take Uncle Phin’s place as far as possible, he jumped up, and hastily
slipping on his ragged clothes, picked up an armful of wood that he
carried into the kitchen.
His aunt looked at him sharply: “Where is Phin?” she demanded.
“I do not know,” answered the boy.
“Humph! I might have expected you would say that,” she replied. “How did
you know I wanted any wood, then?”
“I heard you calling Uncle Phin, and thought perhaps that was what you
wanted him for,” was the reply.
“Well, then, if you know so well what I want, perhaps you know that I
want you to get out of this kitchen and keep out of the way while I am
getting breakfast,” said Mrs. Dustin, angrily.
It is always those whom we have injured the most that we dislike the
most; and, with the recollection of her cruelty toward this gentle child
fresh in her mind, the mere sight of him filled her with anger.
So the little fellow wandered out to the barn, and felt very lonely as
he climbed up on the hay-mow to make sure that his dearest earthly
friend had indeed gone. He sat down to wonder where Uncle Phin was, and
how long it would be before he would come to take him away from that
unhappy place. He wished that he might stay right where he was, and not
be compelled to see any of the family again, and was feeling very
wretched and forlorn generally. All at once he heard Cynthia’s voice
calling the chickens around her on the barn floor where she fed them
every morning. Here was somebody for whom he cared, and the thought that
he was so soon to leave her, probably forever, filled him with a pang of
mingled pain and love.
He slid down from the hay-mow to where his little cousin stood, and as
she threw her arms about his neck and kissed him and told him how much
she loved him and how sorry she was for him, he began to realize how
hard it would be to part from her, and to wonder if after all he ought
to run away with Uncle Phin.
Cynthia was a loving and lovable little soul, and though she had a
freckled face, it was lighted by a pair of glorious brown eyes. Her hair
was of a rich brown, flecked with specks of red gold where the sunlight
shone through it. It was just such hair as the sun loves to kiss, and
the merry wind delighted to toss it into the most bewitching tangles
whenever it was not closely imprisoned under the little pink sun-bonnet.
It reminded Arthur of his own dear mother’s hair, and often when they
were playing together he would snatch off the pink sun-bonnet just for
the pleasure of seeing it ripple down over her shoulders. His own used
to be long, almost as long as Cynthia’s, but his Aunt Nancy had cut it
off when he first came to live there, and it had been clipped short ever
since, greatly to Uncle Phin’s sorrow.
While Arthur and Cynthia were feeding the chickens, and the former was
almost forgetting his recent loneliness, Mr. Dustin came into the barn.
He greeted both the children pleasantly, and even kissed them, a thing
that Arthur wondered at, for he could not remember that it had ever
happened before. Then he asked, “Do you know where Uncle Phin is,
Arthur?”
“I think he has gone away,” replied the boy, flushing and looking down,
for it seemed somehow as though he were not exactly telling the truth.
“Do you know where he has gone?”
“No, sir, I do not,” was the honest reply, and the boy looked his
questioner squarely in the face as he made it.
“Well, I believe you, of course,” said his uncle, “and I suppose he must
have taken it into his head to leave us, though it seems very strange
that he should have done so without bidding you good-bye, or telling you
where he was going.”
This was too much for Arthur’s sense of honor, and speaking up manfully,
he said: “He did tell me he was going away, Uncle John, and bid me
good-bye but he didn’t tell me where he was going, and he didn’t want me
to say anything about it unless I had to.”
“I am glad you have told me this,” said Mr. Dustin, “and since he has
gone I must say I am not very sorry. Now come in to breakfast.”
That morning Mr. Dustin took Arthur and Cynthia with him to the well he
was drilling, and, to their great delight, allowed them to stay there
all day. When they reached home that evening Arthur was so emboldened by
his uncle’s unusual kindness, that he ventured, in his presence, to make
mention of the book of fairy tales that his Aunt Nancy had taken from
him. He said:
“Isn’t the book the beautiful lady gave me my very own, Aunt Nancy?”
“I suppose it is,” answered Mrs. Dustin, shortly.
“Well, then, don’t you think I might have it just to look at?”
“I said you might have it when I got ready to give it to you.”
Then Mr. Dustin inquired what book they referred to, and when it was
explained to him he said:
“Well, I guess your aunt is ready to let you have it this very minute,
aren’t you, wife?”
There was no mistaking his meaning; and, very ungraciously, Aunt Nancy
took the precious book down from its high shelf and tossed it on the
table.
Arthur seized it eagerly, and until the children were sent to bed they
and Mr. Dustin enjoyed looking at its many beautiful illustrations. That
night Arthur slept with it under his pillow and it must have influenced
his dreams for they were very pleasant ones.
The following day was also a happy one for Arthur and Cynthia, for they
spent most of it sitting close together under the roots of the great
overturned tree that was their especial retreat absorbed in the book,
and discussing, in their wise childish way, several of its charming
stories that Arthur read aloud to his little cousin.
The boy was beginning to think that life in this place was not so very
cheerless after all, and was becoming more than ever doubtful of the
expediency of running away, when an incident took place that restored
all his previous resolves. Cynthia had been called in by her mother to
sew on her hated patchwork, and Arthur was sitting alone, when suddenly
a great, squirming, half-dead snake was dropped on him from above. With
a cry of horror the startled boy sprang up just in time to see his
Cousin Dick’s grinning face, and hear him say, “That’s only part of what
you’ll get before long, you little sneak, you.”
That night as he slept with his precious book clasped tightly in his
arms, he was again awakened by a hand laid lightly on his forehead. As
he sprang to a sitting posture, Uncle Phin bent lovingly over him,
saying:
“Sh-h-h, Honey! Ebberyting’s ready, an it’s high time fer us to be
gittin away frum hyar.”