"I should think it was about time for him to be comin'," said Mrs. Rose.
"So should I," assented Miss Elvira Grayson. She peered around the
corner of the front door. Her face was thin and anxious, and her voice
was so like it that it was unmistakably her own note. One would as soon
expect a crow to chick-a-dee as Miss Elvira to talk in any other way.
She was tall, and there was a sort of dainty angularity about her narrow
shoulders. She wore an old black silk, which was a great deal of dress
for afternoon. She had considerable money in the bank, and could afford
to dress well. She wore also some white lace around her long neck, and
it was fastened with a handsome gold-and-jet brooch. She was knitting
some blue worsted, and she sat back in the front entry, out of the
draft. She considered herself rather delicate.
Mrs. Rose sat boldly out in the yard in the full range of the breeze,
sewing upon a blue-and-white gingham waist for her son Willy. She was a
large, pretty-faced woman in a stiffly starched purple muslin, which
spread widely around her.
"He's been gone 'most an hour," she went on; "I hope there's nothin'
happened."
"I wonder if there's snakes in that meadow?" ruminated Miss Elvira.
"I don't know; I'm gettin' ruther uneasy."
"I know one thing--I shouldn't let him go off so, without somebody older
with him, if he was my boy."
"Well, I don't know what I can do," returned Mrs. Rose, uneasily. "There
ain't anybody to go with him. I can't go diggin' sassafras-root, and you
can't, and his uncle Hiram's too busy, and grandfather is too stiff. And
he is so crazy to go after sassafras-root, it does seem a pity to tell
him he sha'n't. I never saw a child so possessed after the root and
sassafras-tea, as he is, in my life. I s'pose it's good for him. I hate
to deny him when he takes so much comfort goin'. There he is now!"
Little Willy Rose crossed the road, and toiled up the stone steps. The
front yard was terraced, and two flights of stone steps led up to the
front door. He was quite breathless when he stood on the top step; his
round, sweet face was pink, his fair hair plastered in flat locks to his
wet forehead. His little trousers and his shoes were muddy, and he
carried a great scraggy mass of sassafras-roots. "I see you a-settin'
out here," he panted, softly.
"You ought not to have stayed so long. We began to be worried about
you," said his mother, in a fond voice. "Now go and take your muddy
shoes right off, and put on your slippers; then you can sit down at the
back door and clean your sassafras, if you want to."
"I got lots," said Willy, smiling sweetly, and wiping his forehead.
"Look-a-there, Miss Elviry."
"So you did," returned Miss Elvira. "I suppose, now, you think you'll
have some sassafras-tea."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I guess I'll steep him a little for supper, he's so crazy for it," said
Mrs. Rose, when Willy had disappeared smilingly around the corner.
"Yes, I would. It's real wholesome for him. Who's that comin'?"
Mrs. Rose stared down at the road. A white horse with an open buggy was
just turning into the drive-way, around the south side of the terraces.
"Why, it's brother Hiram," said she, "and he's got a boy with him. I
wonder who 'tis."
The buggy drew up with a grating noise in the drive-way. Presently a man
appeared around the corner. After him tagged a small white-headed boy,
and after the boy, Willy Rose, with a sassafras-root and an old
shoe-knife in his hands.
The man, who was Mr. Hiram Fairbanks, Mrs. Rose's brother, had a
somewhat doubtful expression. When he stopped, the white-headed boy
stopped, keeping a little behind him in his shadow.
"What boy is that, Hiram?" asked Mrs. Rose. Miss Elvira peered around
the door. Mr. Fairbanks was tall and stiff-looking. He had a sunburned,
sober face. "His name is Dickey," he replied.
"One of those Dickeys?" Mrs. Rose said "Dickeys," as if it were a
synonym for "outcasts" or "rascals."
Mr. Fairbanks nodded. He glanced at the boy in his wake, then at Willy.
"Willy, s'pose you take this little boy 'round and show him your
rabbits," he said, in an embarrassed voice.
"Willy Rose!" cried his mother, "you haven't changed those muddy shoes!
Go right in this minute, 'round by the kitchen door, and take this boy
'round with you; he can sit down on the door-step and help you clean
your sassafras-root."
Willy disappeared lingeringly around the house, and the other boy, on
being further bidden by Mr. Fairbanks, followed him. "Willy," his mother
cried after him, "mind you sit down on the door-step and tie your shoes!
I ain't goin' to have that Dickey boy left alone; his folks are nothin'
but a pack of thieves," she remarked in a lower tone. "What are you
doing with him, Hiram?"
Hiram hesitated. "Well, 'Mandy, you was sayin' the other day that you
wished you had a boy to run errands, and split up kindlin's, and be kind
of company for Willy."
"You ain't brought that Dickey boy?"
"Now, look here, 'Mandy--"
"I ain't going to have him in the house."
"Jest look here a minute, 'Mandy, till I tell you how it happened, and
then you can do jest as you're a mind to about it. I was up by the
Ruggles's this afternoon, and Mis' Ruggles, she come out to the gate,
and hailed me. She wanted to know if I didn't want a boy. Seems the
Dickey woman died last week; you know the father died two year ago.
Well, there was six children, and the oldest boy's skipped, nobody knows
where, and the oldest girl has just got married, and this boy is the
oldest of the four that's left. They took the three little ones to the
poorhouse, and Mis' Ruggles she took this boy in, and she wanted to keep
him, but her own boy is big enough to do all the chores, and she didn't
feel as if she could afford to. She says he's a real nice little fellow,
and his mother wa'n't a bad woman; she was jest kind of sickly and
shiftless. I guess old Dickey wa'n't much, but he's dead. Mis' Ruggles
says this little chap hates awful to go to the poorhouse, and it ain't
no kind of risk to take him, and she'd ought to know. She's lived right
there next door to the Dickeys ever since she was married. I knew you
wanted a boy to do chores 'round, long as Willy wasn't strong enough, so
I thought I'd fetch him along. But you can do jest as you're a mind to."
"Now, Hiram Fairbanks, you know the name those Dickeys have always had.
S'pose I took that boy, and he stole?"
"Mis' Ruggles says she'd trust him with anything."
"She ain't got so much as I have to lose. There I've got two dozen solid
silver teaspoons, and four table-spoons, and my mother's silver creamer,
and Willy's silver napkin-ring. Elviry's got her gold watch, too."
"I've got other things I wouldn't lose for anything," chimed in Miss
Elvira.
"Well, of course, I don't want you to lose anything," said Mr.
Fairbanks, helplessly, "but Mis' Ruggles, she said he was perfectly
safe."
"I s'pose I could lock up the silver spoons and use the old pewter ones,
and Elviry could keep her watch out of sight for a while," ruminated
Mrs. Rose.
"Yes, I could," assented Miss Elvira, "and my breastpin."
"I s'pose he could draw the water, and split up the kindlin'-wood, and
weed the flower-garden," said Mrs. Rose. "I set Willy to weedin' this
morning, and it gave him the headache. I tell you one thing, Hiram
Fairbanks, if I do take this boy, you've got to stand ready to take him
back again the first minute I see anything out of the way with him."
"Yes, I will, 'Mandy; I promise you I will," said Mr. Fairbanks,
eagerly. He hurried out to the buggy, and fumbled under the seat; then
he returned with a bundle and a small wooden box.
"Here's his clothes. I guess he ain't got much," said he.
Mrs. Rose took the newspaper bundle; then she eyed the box suspiciously.
It was a wooden salt-box, and the sliding cover was nailed on.
"What's in this?" said she.
"Oh, I don't know," replied Mr. Fairbanks; "some truck or other--I guess
it ain't worth much."
He put the box down on the bank, and trudged heavily and quickly out to
the buggy. He was anxious to be off; he shook the reins, shouted "ge
lang" to the white horse, and wheeled swiftly around the corner.
"I'd like to know what's in that box," said Mrs. Rose to Miss Elvira.
"I hope he ain't got an old pistol or anything of that kind in it,"
returned Miss Elvira. "Oh, 'Mandy, I wouldn't shake it, if I were you!"
For Mrs. Rose was shaking the wooden box, and listening with her ear at
it.
"Something rattles in it," said she, desisting; "I hope it ain't a
pistol." Then she entered with the newspaper bundle and the box, and
went through the house, with Miss Elvira following. She set the bundle
and box on the kitchen table, and looked out of the door. There on the
top step sat the Dickey boy cleaning the sassafras-roots with great
industry, while Willy Rose sat on the lower one chewing some.
"I do believe he's goin' to take right hold, Elviry," whispered Mrs.
Rose.
"Well, maybe he is," returned Miss Elvira.
Mrs. Rose stowed away the boy's belongings in the little bedroom off the
kitchen where she meant him to sleep; then she kindled the fire and got
supper. She made sassafras-tea, and the new boy, sitting beside Willy,
had a cup poured for him. But he did not drink much nor eat much,
although there were hot biscuits and berries and custards. He hung his
forlorn head with its shock of white hair, and only gave fleeting
glances at anything with his wild, blue eyes. He was a thin boy, smaller
than Willy, but he looked wiry and full of motion, like a wild rabbit.
After supper Mrs. Rose sent him for a pail of water; then he split up a
little pile of kindling-wood. After that he sat down on the kitchen
door-step in the soft twilight, and was silent.
Willy went into the sitting-room, where his mother and Miss Elvira were.
"He's settin' out there on the door-step, not speakin' a word," said he,
in a confidential whisper.
"Well, you had better sit down here with us and read your Sunday-school
book," said his mother. She and Miss Elvira had agreed that it was wiser
that Willy should not be too much with the Dickey boy until they knew
him better.
When it was nine o'clock Mrs. Rose showed the Dickey boy his bedroom.
She looked at him sharply; his small pale face showed red stains in the
lamplight. She thought to herself that he had been crying, and she spoke
to him as kindly as she could--she had not a caressing manner with
anybody but Willy. "I guess there's clothes enough on the bed," said
she. She looked curiously at the bundle and the wooden box. Then she
unfastened the bundle. "I guess I'll see what you've got for clothes,"
said she, and her tone was as motherly as she could make it towards this
outcast Dickey boy. She laid out his pitiful little wardrobe, and
examined the small ragged shirt or two and the fragmentary stockings. "I
guess I shall have to buy you some things if you are a good boy," said
she. "What have you got in that box?"--the boy hung his head--"I hope
you ain't got a pistol?"
"No, marm."
"You ain't got any powder, nor anything of that kind?"
"No, marm." The boy was blushing confusedly.
"I hope you're tellin' me the truth," Mrs. Rose said, and her tone was
full of severe admonition.
"Yes, marm." The tears rolled down the boy's cheeks, and Mrs. Rose said
no more. She told him she would call him in the morning, and to be
careful about his lamp. Then she left him. The Dickey boy lay awake, and
cried an hour; then he went to sleep, and slept as soundly as Willy Rose
in his snug little bedroom leading out of his mother's room. Miss Elvira
and Mrs. Rose locked their doors that night, through distrust of that
little boy down-stairs who came of a thieving family. Miss Elvira put
her gold watch and her breastpin and her pocket-book, with seventeen
dollars in it, under the feather-bed; and Mrs. Rose carried the silver
teaspoons up-stairs, and hid them under hers. The Dickey boy was not
supposed to know they were in the house--the pewter ones had been used
for supper--but that did not signify; she thought it best to be on the
safe side. She kept the silver spoons under the feather-bed for many a
day, and they all ate with the pewter ones; but finally suspicion was
allayed if not destroyed. The Dickey boy had shown himself trustworthy
in several instances. Once he was sent on a test errand to the store,
and came home promptly with the right change. The silver spoons
glittered in the spoon-holder on the table, and Miss Elvira wore her
gold watch and her gold breastpin.
"I begin to take a good deal more stock in that boy," Mrs. Rose told her
brother Hiram.
"He ain't very lively, but he works real smart; he ain't saucy, and I
ain't known of his layin' hands on a thing."
But the Dickey boy, although he had won some confidence and good
opinions, was, as Mrs. Rose said, not very lively. His face, as he did
his little tasks, was as sober and serious as an old man's. Everybody
was kind to him, but this poor little alien felt like a chimney-sweep in
a queen's palace. Mrs. Rose, to a Dickey boy, was almost as impressive
as a queen. He watched with admiration and awe this handsome, energetic
woman moving about the house in her wide skirts. He was overcome with
the magnificence of Miss Elvira's afternoon silk, and gold watch; and
dainty little Willy Rose seemed to him like a small prince. Either the
Dickey boy, born in a republican country, had the original instincts of
the peasantry in him, and himself defined his place so clearly that it
made him unhappy, or his patrons did it for him. Mrs. Rose and Miss
Elvira tried to treat him as well as they treated Willy. They dressed
him in Willy's old clothes; they gave him just as much to eat; when
autumn came he was sent to school as warmly clad and as well provided
with luncheon; but they could never forget that he was a Dickey boy. He
seemed, in truth, to them like an animal of another species, in spite
of all they could do, and they regarded his virtues in the light of
uncertain tricks. Mrs. Rose never thought at any time of leaving him in
the house alone without hiding the spoons, and Miss Elvira never left
her gold watch unguarded.
Nobody knew whether the Dickey boy was aware of these lurking suspicions
or not; he was so subdued that it was impossible to tell how much he
observed. Nobody knew how homesick he was, but he went about every day
full of fierce hunger for his miserable old home. Miserable as it had
been, there had been in it a certain element of shiftless ease and
happiness. The Dickey boy's sickly mother had never chided him; she had
not cared if he tracked mud into the house. How anxiously he scraped his
feet before entering the Rose kitchen. The Dickey boy's dissipated
father had been gentle and maudlin, but never violent. All the Dickey
children had done as they chose, and they had agreed well. They were not
a quarrelsome family. Their principal faults were idleness and a general
laxity of morals which was quite removed from active wickedness. "All
the Dickeys needed was to be bolstered up," one woman in the village
said; and the Dickey boy was being bolstered up in the Rose family.
They called him Dickey, using his last name for his first, which was
Willy. Mrs. Rose straightened herself unconsciously when she found that
out. "We can't have two Willies in the family, anyhow," said she; "we'll
have to call you Dickey."
Once the Dickey boy's married sister came to see him, and Mrs. Rose
treated her with such stiff politeness that the girl, who was fair and
pretty and gaudily dressed, told her husband when she got home that she
would never go into _that_ woman's house again. Occasionally Mrs. Rose,
who felt a duty in the matter, took Dickey to visit his little brothers
and sisters at the almshouse. She even bought some peppermint-candy for
him to take them. He really had many a little extra kindness shown him;
sometimes Miss Elvira gave him a penny, and once Mr. Hiram Fairbanks
gave him a sweet-apple tree--that was really quite a magnificent gift.
Mrs. Rose could hardly believe it when Willy told her. "Well, I must say
I never thought Hiram would do such a thing as that, close as he is,"
said she. "I was terribly taken aback when he gave that tree to Willy,
but this beats all. Why, odd years it might bring in twenty dollars!"
"Uncle Hiram gave it to him," Willy repeated. "I was a-showin' Dickey my
apple-tree, and Uncle Hiram he picked out another one, and he give it
to him."
"Well, I wouldn't have believed it," said Mrs. Rose.
Nobody else would have believed that Hiram Fairbanks, careful old
bachelor that he was, would have been so touched by the Dickey boy's
innocent, wistful face staring up at the boughs of Willy's apple-tree.
It was fall, and the apples had all been harvested. Dickey would get no
practical benefit from his tree until next season, but there was no
calculating the comfort he took with it from the minute it came into his
possession. Every minute he could get, at first, he hurried off to the
orchard and sat down under its boughs. He felt as if he were literally
under his own roof-tree. In the winter, when it was heavy with snow, he
did not forsake it. There would be a circle of little tracks around the
trunk.
Mrs. Rose told her brother that the boy was perfectly crazy about that
apple-tree, and Hiram grinned shamefacedly.
All winter Dickey went with Willy to the district school, and split wood
and brought water between times. Sometimes of an evening he sat soberly
down with Willy and played checkers, but Willy always won. "He don't try
to beat," Willy said. Sometimes they had pop-corn, and Dickey always
shook the popper. Dickey said he wasn't tired, if they asked him. All
winter the silver spoons appeared on the table, and Dickey was treated
with a fair show of confidence. It was not until spring that the
sleeping suspicion of him awoke. Then one day Mrs. Rose counted her
silver spoons, and found only twenty-three teaspoons. She stood at her
kitchen table, and counted them over and over. Then she opened the
kitchen door. "Elviry!" she called out, "Elviry, come here a minute!
Look here," she said, in a hushed voice, when Miss Elvira's inquiring
face had appeared at the door. Miss Elvira approached the table
tremblingly.
"Count those spoons," said Mrs. Rose.
Miss Elvira's long slim fingers handled the jingling spoons. "There
ain't but twenty-three," she said finally, in a scared voice.
"I expected it," said Mrs. Rose. "Do you s'pose he took it?"
"Who else took it, I'd like to know?"
It was a beautiful May morning; the apple-trees were all in blossom. The
Dickey boy had stolen over to look at his. It was a round hill of
pink-and-white bloom. It was the apple year. Willy came to the stone
wall and called him. "Dickey," he cried, "Mother wants you;" and Dickey
obeyed. Willy had run on ahead. He found Mrs. Rose, Miss Elvira, Willy,
and the twenty-three teaspoons awaiting him in the kitchen. He shook his
head to every question they asked him about the missing spoon. He turned
quite pale; once in a while he whimpered; the tears streamed down his
cheeks, but he only shook his head in that mute denial.
"It won't make it any easier for you, holding out this way," said Mrs.
Rose, harshly. "Stop cryin' and go out and split up some kindlin'-wood."
Dickey went out, his little convulsed form bent almost double. Willy,
staring at him with his great, wondering blue eyes, stood aside to let
him pass. Then he also was sent on an errand, while his mother and Miss
Elvira had a long consultation in the kitchen.
It was a half-hour before Mrs. Rose went out to the shed where she had
sent the Dickey boy to split kindlings. There lay a nice little pile of
kindlings, but the boy had disappeared.
"Dickey, Dickey!" she called. But he did not come.
"I guess he's gone, spoon and all," she told Miss Elvira, when she went
in; but she did not really think he had. When one came to think of it,
he was really too small and timid a boy to run away with one silver
spoon. It did not seem reasonable. What they did think, as time went on
and he did not appear, was that he was hiding to escape a whipping. They
searched everywhere. Miss Elvira stood in the shed by the wood-pile,
calling in her thin voice, "Come out, Dickey; we won't whip you if you
_did_ take it," but there was not a stir.
Towards night they grew uneasy. Mr. Fairbanks came, and they talked
matters over.
"Maybe he didn't take the spoon," said Mr. Fairbanks, uncomfortably.
"Anyhow, he's too young a chap to be set adrift this way. I wish you'd
let me talk to him, 'Mandy."
"_You!_" said Mrs. Rose. Then she started up. "I know one thing," said
she; "I'm goin' to see what's in that wooden box. I don't believe but
what that spoon's in there. There's no knowin' how long it's been gone."
It was quite a while before Mrs. Rose returned with the wooden box. She
had to search for it, and found it under the bed. The Dickey boy also
had hidden his treasures. She got the hammer and Hiram pried off the
lid, which was quite securely nailed. "I'd ought to have had it opened
before," said she. "He hadn't no business to have a nailed-up box
'round. Don't joggle it so, Hiram. There's no knowin' what's in it.
There may be a pistol."
[Illustration: "THERE, AMONG THE BLOSSOMING BRANCHES, CLUNG THE DICKEY
BOY."]
Miss Elvira stood farther off. Mr. Fairbanks took the lid entirely off.
They all peered into the box. There lay an old clay pipe and a roll of
faded calico. Mr. Fairbanks took up the roll and shook it out. "It's an
apron," said he. "It's his father's pipe, and his mother's
apron--I--swan!"
Miss Elvira began to cry. "I hadn't any idea of anything of that kind,"
said Mrs. Rose, huskily. "Willy Rose, what _have_ you got there?"
For Willy, looking quite pale and guilty, was coming in, holding a muddy
silver teaspoon. "Where did you get that spoon? Answer me this minute,"
cried his mother.
"I--took it out to--dig in my garden with the--other day. I--forgot--"
"Oh, you naughty boy!" cried his mother. Then she, too, began to weep.
Mr. Fairbanks started up. "Something's got to be done," said he. "The
wind's changed, and the May storm is comin' on. That boy has got to be
found before night."
But all Mr. Fairbanks's efforts, and the neighbors' who came to his
assistance, could not find the Dickey boy before night or before the
next morning. The long, cold May storm began, the flowering apple-trees
bent under it, and the wind drove the rain against the windows. Mrs.
Rose and Miss Elvira kept the kitchen fire all night, and hot water and
blankets ready. But the day had fairly dawned before they found the
Dickey boy, and then only by the merest chance. Mr. Fairbanks, hurrying
across his orchard for a short cut, and passing Dickey's tree, happened
to glance up at it, with a sharp pang of memory. He stopped short.
There, among the blossoming branches, clung the Dickey boy, like a
little drenched, storm-beaten bird. He had flown to his one solitary
possession for a refuge. He was almost exhausted; his little hands
grasped a branch like steel claws. Mr. Fairbanks took him down and
carried him home. "He was up in his tree," he told his sister, brokenly,
when he entered the kitchen. "He's 'most gone."
But the Dickey boy revived after he had lain a while before a fire and
been rolled in hot blankets and swallowed some hot drink. He looked with
a wondering smile at Mrs. Rose when she bent over him and kissed him
just as she kissed Willy. Miss Elvira loosened her gold watch, with its
splendid, long gold chain, and put it in his hand. "There, hold it a
while," said she, "and listen to it tick." Mr. Fairbanks fumbled in his
pocket-book and drew out a great silver dollar. "There," said he, "you
can have that to spend when you get well."
Willy pulled his mother's skirt. "Mother," he whispered.
"What say?"
"Can't I pop some corn for him?"
"By-and-by." Mrs. Rose smoothed the Dickey boy's hair; then she bent
down and kissed him again. She had fairly made room for him in her
stanch, narrow New England heart.