I am back again, and had a good time; but came back hungry. I’ll tell
you why. The first time I sat down to table I felt bashful, and Dorry’s
mother said a great deal about my having a small appetite, and
afterwards I didn’t like to make her think it was a large one.
I guess I behaved quite well at the table. But I couldn’t look the way
you said. It made me feel squint-eyed. Once I almost laughed at table.
The day they had roast duck, it smelt nice. I thought it wouldn’t go
round, for they had company besides me; and I said, “No, I thank you,
ma’am.” Dorry whispered to me, “You must be a goose not to love duck”;
and that was when I almost laughed at table. His grandmother shook her
head at him.
Now I’ll tell about Tom Cush’s father. That Saturday, when we were
eating dinner, somebody came to the front door, and inquired for us
two,--Dorry and me. It was Tom Cush’s father. He wanted to ask us about
Tom, and whether we knew anything about him. But we knew no more than he
did. He talked some with us. The next evening,--Sunday evening,--Tom
Cush’s mother sent for Dorry and me to come and see her. His father came
after us. She said they wanted to know more about what I wrote to you in
those letters.
O, I don’t want ever again to go where the folks are so sober. The room
was just as still as anything, not much light burning, and great
curtains hanging way down, and she looked like a sick woman. Just as
pale! Only sometimes she stood up and walked, and then sat down again,
and leaned way forward, and asked a question, and looked into our faces
so. We didn’t know what to do. Dorry talked more than I could. Tom’s
father kept just as sober! He said to Dorry: “It is true, then, that my
boy wouldn’t own up to his own actions?” or something like that.
Dorry said, “Yes, sir.”
Tom’s father said, “And he was willing to sit still and see another boy
whipped in his place?”
“Yes, sir,” Dorry said. But he didn’t say it very loud.
Then they stopped asking questions, and not one of us spoke for ever so
long. O, ’t was so still! At last Dorry said, just as softly, “Can’t you
find him anywhere?” And then I said that I didn’t believe he was lost.
Then Tom’s father got up from his chair and said, “Lost? That’s not it.
That’s not it. ’T is his not being honorable! ’T is his not being true!
Lost? Why, he was lost before he left the school.” Says he: “When he did
a mean thing, then he lost himself. For he lost his truth. He lost his
honor. There’s nothing left worth having when they are gone.”
O, I never saw Dorry so sober as he was that night going home. And when
we went to bed, he hardly spoke a word, and didn’t throw pillows, or
anything. I shut my eyes up tight and thought about you all at home, and
Aunt Phebe, and Aunt Phebe’s little Tommy, and about school, and about
Bubby Short, and all the time Tom’s mother’s eyes kept looking at me
just as they did; and when I was asleep I seemed back again in that
lonesome room, and they two sitting there.
From your affectionate grandchild,