FullReads

“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?”