FullReads

He had stopped at the dining-room door that day and was handing in the larger basket, as usual, when old Mr. Cary, who stood there, said, smiling:

“No, give us the smaller basket to-day, my boy. It’s our turn to be generous.”

He extended his hand as he spoke.

Crow tried to answer, but he could not. His mouth felt as dry and stiff and hard as a chip, and he suddenly began to open it wide and shut it slowly, like a chicken with the gapes.

Mr. Cary kept his hand out waiting, but still Crow stood as if paralyzed, gaping and swallowing.

Finally, he began to blink. And then he stammered:

“I ain’t p-p-p-ertic’lar b-b-bout de big basket. D-d-d-de best figs is in y’all’s pickin’–in dis, de big basket.”

Crow’s appearance was conviction itself. Without more ado, Mr. Cary grasped his arm firmly and fairly lifted him into the room.

“Now, set those baskets down.” He spoke sharply.

The boy obeyed.

“Here! empty the larger one on this tray. That’s it. All fine, ripe figs. You’ve picked well for us. Now turn the other one out.”

At this poor Crow had a sudden relapse of the dry gapes. His arm fell limp and he looked as if he might tumble over.

“Turn ’em out!” The old gentleman shrieked in so thunderous a tone that Crow jumped off his feet, and, seizing the other basket with his little shaking paws, he emptied it upon the heap of figs.

Old Mrs. Cary had come in just in time to see the eggs roll out of the basket, and for a moment she and her husband looked at each other. And then they turned to the boy.

When she spoke her voice was so gentle that Crow, not understanding, looked quickly into her face:

“Let me take him into the library, William. Come, my boy.”

Her tone was so soft, so sorrowful and sympathetic, that Crow felt as he followed her as if, in the hour of his deepest disgrace, he had found a friend; and when presently he stood in a great square room before a high arm-chair, in which a white-haired old lady sat looking at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles and talking to him as he had never been spoken to in all his life before, he felt as if he were in a great court before a judge who didn’t understand half how very bad little boys were.

She asked him a good many questions–some very searching ones, too–all of which Crow answered as best he could, with his very short breath.

His first feeling had been of pure fright. But when he found he was not to be abused, not beaten or sent to jail, he began to wonder.

Little Solomon Crow, ten years old, in a Christian land, was hearing for the first time in his life that God loved him–loved him even now in his sin and disgrace, and wanted him to be good.

He listened with wandering eyes at first, half expecting the old gentleman, Mr. Cary, to appear suddenly at the door with a whip or a policeman with a club. But after a while he kept his eyes steadily upon the lady’s face.

“Has no one ever told you, Solomon”–she had always called him Solomon, declaring that Crow was not a fit name for a boy who looked as he did–it was altogether “too personal”–“has no one ever told you, Solomon,” she said, “that God loves all His little children, and that you are one of these children?”

“No, ma’am,” he answered, with difficulty. And then, as if catching at something that might give him a little standing, he added, quickly–so quickly that he stammered again:

“B-b-b-but I knowed I was twin to a angel. I know dat. An’ I knows ef my angel twin seen me steal dem aigs he’ll be mightly ap’ to tell Gord to strike me down daid.”

Of course he had to explain then about the “angel twin,” and the old lady talked to him for a long time. And then together they knelt down. When at last they came out of the library she held the boy’s hand and led him to her husband.