By common consent, and without the formality of publication or
proclamation, the women had agreed to meet on the day after the funeral
for the purpose of discussing what was best to be done with the boy
Fred. From the moment that Mrs. Davis had taken charge of him, he had
shown a love for her and confidence in her care that had thoroughly
touched that good woman's heart. She would have liked nothing better
than to keep him herself. But there were already five hungry little
Davises, and any avoidable addition to the family was out of the
question. To be sure, in the course of time there were two more added to
the number, but that was unavoidable, and is neither here nor there. The
good woman sat looking at the boy the night after his mother had been
laid away. He sat upon the floor among her own children, playing in the
happy forgetfulness of extreme youth. But to the mother's keen eye there
was still a vague sadness in his bearing. Involuntarily, the scene and
conditions were changed, and, instead of poor Margaret, she herself had
passed away and was lying out there in a new-made grave in bleak and
dreary Woodland. She thought how her own bairns would be as motherless
and forlorn as the child before her, and yet not quite, either, for they
had a father who loved them in his own quiet undemonstrative way. This
should have consoled her in the sorrows she had conjured up, but, like a
woman, she thought of the father helpless and lonely when she had gone,
with the children huddled cheerlessly about him, and a veil of tears
came between her and the youngsters on the floor. With a great rush of
tenderness, she went and picked the motherless boy up and laid his head
on her breast.
"Pore Freddie," she said, "I wish you could stay here all the time and
play with the other little ones."
The child looked up at her with wondering eyes. "I kin stay till mamma
comes back," he answered.
"But, Freddie dear, mamma won't come back any more. She 's"--the woman
hesitated--"she 's in heaven."
"I want my mamma to come back," moaned the child. "I don't want her to
stay in heaven."
"But you must n't cry, Freddie; an', some day, you kin go an' see
mamma."
The child's curiosity got the better of his grief. He asked, "Is heaven
far, Mis' Davis?"
"Yes, dear, awful far," she answered. But she was wrong. Heaven is not
far from the warm heart and tender hands of a good woman.
The child's head drooped, and he drowsed in her arms.
"Put him to bed, Melissy,--pore little fellow," said her husband in
husky tones. He had been listening and watching them around the edge of
his paper. The child slept on, while the woman undressed him and laid
him in the bed.
On the morrow the women dropped in one by one, until a half-dozen or
more were there, to plan the boy's future. They were all poor, and most
of them had families of their own. But all hoped that there might be
some plan devised whereby Margaret's boy might find a refuge without
going to the orphans' asylum, an institution which is the detestation
of women. Mrs. Davis, in expressing her feelings, expressed those of all
the others: "I hate so to think of the pore little feller goin' to one
o' them childern's homes. The boys goin' around in them there drab
clothes o' theirs allus look like pris'ners to me, an' they ain't much
better off."
"An' then childern do learn so much weekedness in them places from the
older ones," put in another.
"Oh, as fur that matter, he 'll learn devilment soon enough anywhere,"
snapped Mrs. Warren, "with that owdacious father o' his before him. I
would n't take the child by no means, though his mother an' me was
friends, fur blood 's bound to tell, an' with sich blood as he 's got in
him I don't know what he 'll come to, an' I 'm shore I don't want to be
a-raisin' no gallus-birds."
The women felt rather relieved that Mrs. Warren so signally washed her
hands of Freddie. That was one danger he had escaped. The woman in
question had, as she said, been a close friend of Margaret's, and, as
such, an aider in her habits of intemperance. It had been apprehended
that her association with the mother might lead her to take the child.
"I 'd like to take Freddie myself," Mrs. Davis began again, "but with
my five, an' John out o' work half the time, another mouth to feed an'
another pair o' feet to cover would mean a whole lot. Though I do think
that ef I was dead an' my childern was sent to that miserable orphans'
home, I 'd turn over in my grave."
"It 's a pity we don't know some good family that 'ain't got no childern
that 'ud take him an' bring him up as their own son," said a little
woman who took _The Hearthside_.
"Sich people ain't growin' on trees no place about Dexter," Mrs. Warren
sniffed.
"Well, I 'm sure I 've read of sich things. Ef the child was in a book
it 'ud happen to him, but he ain't. He 's a flesh and blood youngster
an' a-livin' in Dexter."
"You could n't give us no idee what to do, could you, Mis' Austin?"
"Lord love you, Mis' Davis, I 've jest been a-settin' here purty nigh
a-thinkin' my head off, but I 'ain't seen a gleam of light yit. You know
how I feel an' jest how glad I 'd be to do something, but then my man
growls about the three we 've got."
"That 's jest the way with my man," said the little woman who took her
ideas of life from the literature in _The Hearthside_. "He allus says
that pore folks ought n't to have so many childern."
"Well, it 's a blessin' that Margar't did n't have no more, fur goodness
knows it 's hard enough disposin' o' this one."
Just then a tap came at Mrs. Davis's door, and she opened it to admit
Miss Hester Prime.
"I 'm ruther late gittin' here," said the new-comer, "but I 've been
a-neglectin' my work so in the last couple o' days that I 've had a
power of it to do to-day to ketch up."
"Oh, we 're so glad you 've come!" said one of the women. "Mebbe you kin
help us out of our fix. We 're in sich a fix about little Freddie."
"We don't want to send the pore little dear to the childern's home,"
broke in another.
"It 's sich an awful place fur young childern--"
"An' they do look so pitiful--"
"An' learn so much weekedness."
And, as is the manner of women in council, they all began talking at
once, pouring into the new-comer's ears all the suggestions and
objections, hopes and fears, that had been made or urged during their
conference.
To it all Miss Hester listened, and there was a soft glow on her face
the while; but then she had been walking, which may account for the
flush. The child, all unconscious that his destiny was being settled,
was playing with two of the little Davises at the other end of the room.
The three days of good food, good treatment, and pleasant surroundings
had told on him, and he looked less forlorn and more like the child that
he was. He was clean. His brown eyes were sparkling with amusement, and
his brown hair was brushed up into the damp "roach" so dear to a woman's
heart. He was, thus, a far less forbidding sight than on the morning of
his mother's death, when, dingy and haggard, he rose from his dirty
pallet. As she listened to the varied remarks of her associates, Miss
Hester allowed her eyes to wander to the child's face, and for a moment
a tenderer expression grew about her lips, but in an instant it was
gone, and, as if she had been near committing herself to folly, she made
amends by drawing her countenance into more than its usually severe
lines.
Mrs. Warren, who was always ready with a stab, and who had not
forgotten her encounter of two days ago, spoke up with a little
malicious laugh. "Miss Hester 'ain't got no family: mebbe she might take
the child. 'Pears like she ought to be fond o' childern."
Mrs. Davis immediately came to the rescue. "We don't expect no sich
thing of Miss Hester. She 's never been around childern, an' don't know
nothin' about takin' keer o' them; an' boys air hard to manage, anyhow."
"Oh, I should think Miss Hester could manage 'most anything," was the
sneering rejoinder.
The women were aghast at such insolence. They did n't know what the
effect might be on Miss Prime. They looked at her in alarm. Her cold
grey eye impaled Mrs. Warren for an instant only, and then, paying no
more attention to her, she said quietly, "I was thinkin' this whole
matter over while I was finishin' up my work to come here, an', says I
to myself, 'Now there 's Melissy Davis,--she 's the very one that 'ud be
a mother to that child,' says I, 'an' she 'd bring him up right as a
child should be brought up.' I don't know no more mannerly,
nice-appearin' childern in this neighbourhood, or the whole town, fur
that matter, than Melissy's--'"
"Oh, Miss Hester!" faltered Mrs. Davis.
But Miss Prime went on, unheeding the interruption. "Thinks I, 'Melissy
's got a houseful already, an' she can't take another.' Then you comes
into my mind, Mis' Austin, an' says I, 'La me! she 's got three herself,
an' is young yit; she 'll have her hands full to look after her own
family.' Well, I thought of you all, an' some of you had families, an'
some of you had to go out fur day's work; an' then there 's some
people's hands I would n't want to see the child fall into." (This with
an annihilating glance in Mrs. Warren's direction.) "You know what the
Bible says about the sins of the father; well, that child needs proper
raisin': so in this way the Lord showed it to me that it was my dooty to
take up the burden myself."
First there was an absolute silence of utter astonishment, and then,
"Oh, Miss Hester!" broke from a full chorus of voices.
"You don't reelly mean it, Miss Hester?" said Mrs. Davis.
"I do that; but I want you all to understand that it ain't a matter of
pleasure or desire with me; it 's dooty. Ef I see a chance to save a
soul from perdition an' don't take it, I am responsible, myself, to the
Lord for that soul."
The women were almost too astounded to speak, Mrs. Warren not less than
the rest of them. She had made her suggestion in derision, and here it
was being acted upon in sober earnest. She was entirely routed.
"Now, Melissy, ef there ain't no one that disagrees with me, you might
as well pack up what few things the child has, an' I 'll take him
along."
No one objected, and the few things were packed up. "Come, Freddie,"
said Mrs. Davis tremulously, "get on yore hat." The child obeyed. "You
're a-goin' to be Miss Hester's little boy now. You must be good."
Miss Prime held out her hand to him, but the child drew back and held to
his protectress's skirt. A hurt expression came into the spinster's
face. It was as if the great sacrifice she was making was being
belittled and rejected by a child. Mrs. Warren laughed openly.
"Come, Freddie, be nice now, dear; go with Miss Hester."
"I want to stay with you," cried the child.
"Pore little dear!" chorussed the women.
"But Mis' Davis can't keep the little boy; now he must go with Miss
Prime, an' sometimes he kin come an' see Mis' Davis an' play with John
an' Harriet. Won't that be nice?"
"I want to stay with you."
"Come, Frederick," said Miss Prime.
"Go now, like a good boy," repeated Mrs. Davis. "Here 's a copper fur
you; take it in yore little hand,--that 's a man. Now kiss me good-bye.
Kiss John an' Harriet."
The child, seeing that he must go, had given up resistance, and, doing
as he was bidden, took Miss Prime's hand, sobbingly. Some of us do not
learn so soon to bow to the inevitable.
"Good-bye, ladies. I must git back to my work," said Miss Hester.
"Good-bye, good-bye, Miss Hester," came the echo.
The moment the door closed behind her and her charge, there was a volley
of remarks:
"Oh, I do hope she 'll be good to him."
"I wonder how she 'll manage him."
"Pore child, he did n't want to go at all."
"Who 'd have thought it of Miss Hester?"
"I wish I could have kept him myself," said Mrs. Davis, tearfully. "It
hurt my heart to see him cling to me so."
"Never you mind, Melissy Davis; you 've done yore whole dooty as well as
you could."
Mrs. Warren rose and put her shawl over her head preparatory to going.
"As fur my part," she said, "I 'd 'a' ruther seen that child in the
childern's home, devilment or no devilment, than where he is. He won't
dare to breathe from this hour on."
The women were silent for a moment, and then Mrs. Davis said, "Well,
Miss Hester 's well-meanin'."