WHEN Charlie Gaston reached his home after a never-to-be-forgotten day
in the woods with the Preacher, he found a ragged little dirt-smeared
negro boy peeping through the fence into the woodyard.
“What you want?” cried Charlie.
“Nuttin!”
“What’s your name?”
“Dick.”
“Who’s your father?”
“Haint got none. My mudder say she was tricked, en I’se de trick!” he
chuckled and walled his eyes.
Charlie came close and looked him over. Dick giggled and showed the
whites of his eyes.
“What made that streak on your neck?”
“Nigger done it wid er axe.”
“What nigger?”
“Low life nigger name er Amos what stays roun’ our house Sundays.”
“What made him do it?”
“He low he wuz me daddy, en I sez he wuz er liar, en den he grab de axe
en try ter chop me head off.”
“Gracious, he ’most killed you!”
“Yassir, but de doctor sewed me head back, en hit grow’d.”
“Goodness me!”
“Say!” grinned Dick.
“What?”
“I likes you.”
“Do you?”
“Yassir, en I aint gwine home no mo’. I done run away, en I wants ter
live wid you.”
“Will you help me and Nelse work?”
“Dat I will. I can do mos’ anyting. You ax yer Ma fur me, en doan let
dat nigger Nelse git holt er me.” Charlie’s heart went out to the ragged
little waif. He took him by the hand, led him into the yard, found his
mother, and begged her to give him a place to sleep and keep him.
His mother tried to persuade him to make Dick go back to his own home.
Nelse was loud in his objections to the new comer, and Aunt Eve looked
at him as though she would throw him over the fence.
But Dick stuck doggedly to Charlie’s heels.
“Mama dear, see, they tried to cut his head oft with an axe,” cried the
boy, and he wheeled Dick around and showed the terrible scar across the
back of his neck.
“I spec hits er pity dey didn’t cut hit clean off,” muttered Nelse.
“Mama, you can’t send him back to be killed!”
“Well, darling, I’ll see about it to-morrow.”
“Come on Dick, I’ll show you where to sleep!”
The next day Dick’s mother was glad to get rid of him by binding him
legally to Mrs. Gaston, and a lonely boy found a playmate and partner in
work, he was never to forget.