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[Illustration]




HARRY FENIMORE’S PRINCIPLES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

“A SUMMER IN THE FOREST,” “FLOY LINDSLEY
AND HER FRIENDS,” ETC.

[Illustration: Logo]

_American Tract Society_,

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.




COPYRIGHT, 1877,
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.




HARRY FENIMORE’S

PRINCIPLES.




CHAPTER I.


Outside the city limits the country was glowing with garnet and gold,
but within the boundary of walls and pavements, only here and there a
solitary tree, or a vine trailing over a balcony, showed what October
had been doing, and now the short autumn twilight was drawing its gray
veil over even those. But nothing daunted, and as if determined to
keep up for itself, the city began to sparkle here and there with an
illumination of its own, and gas-lights began to gleam from one window
after another, giving for the moment before the blinds were drawn, a
free chance for a peep at the evening just beginning inside.

The light flashed from the windows of two houses at the same instant.
One stood quite toward the outer limits of the city, and though its
inmates and its furnishings were poor enough, it had a broad outlook
over all the brilliant glory of the country round about, while a great
old butternut-tree, knotted and gnarled by many a year, scattered its
leaves in a golden shower over the roof and down the long yard leading
to the road. The other fronted on one of the fashionable avenues of
the city, where the square of grass before each door was only large
enough for a single shrub, or a garden vase but inside, ivies twining
fresh and green upon the walls, a conservatory window full of flowers,
and the pleasant warmth of the crackling fire in the grate, seemed to
balance the gayety of life outside, and make things very nearly equal
again.

Whether the advantage was really on the side of the queer rambling old
house under the butternut-tree, or belonged to himself, sitting in the
ivied library of the brown stone front, Hal Fenimore was quite too busy
to decide, as the servant reached his torch up to the chandelier, and
with one burst after another the gas rushed to meet it, and the room
flashed into a sudden burst of light.

“That’s good,” he exclaimed, as it flooded down upon the table where
with elbows firmly planted, and his hands pushed through his hair, he
had been impatiently waiting for his companion, Tom Haggarty, to make
the next move in their game.

“I don’t know about it, though,” he added to himself, under his breath,
as he discovered something to which he had been quite blind before, but
which stood out so plainly now that he did not see how Tom could fail
to see it for another moment. Everything had been going on swimmingly
on his side, up to that moment; but there stood his queen in the very
line of march of one of Tom’s bishops, and not a piece of any size to
interfere! If Tom would only continue blind to his opportunity for one
move more, till there should be time for a masterly retreat!

Poor little Tom! He did not look like an antagonist much to be dreaded,
as he sat vis-a-vis to Hal, with not only an anxious, but a bewildered
expression upon his face, first lifting a hand towards one of his
pieces, and then withdrawing it, as if his uncertainty had only doubled
by the movement. At last, in a sort of desperation, he made a plunge at
his only remaining knight and moved it into a worse position than it
occupied before. Then, still more hopelessly perplexed by Hal’s chuckle
of triumph at the escape of his queen, and his taunting, “A’n’t you
a bright fellow to play with!” he made two or three aimless moves,
and Hal cried “Checkmate!” in a tone that completed his humiliation.
It was very unpleasant somehow; he wondered if the player who did not
checkmate always felt so. If he did, Tom certainly thought chess a very
disagreeable game. So he slipped down from his chair and told Hal, who
was still rejoicing in the conclusion of things, that he thought he
must go.

“Don’t go,” said Hal, “let’s play another.”

“I guess I can’t; I guess I _must_ go,” said Tom; and finding his hat,
he got out of the front door, and heard it close behind him with a
miserable feeling that seemed to run down to the very depths of his
pockets, to the effect that Hal and himself had a clear understanding
between them that he was a stupid little fellow, and that a good player
was more than a match for him.

When Hal came back to the library, rubbing his hands with renewed
triumph as he glanced at the chess-board, he also saw through the open
door of the dining-room, that dinner had been brought in, and that his
was the only vacant seat at the table.

So scrambling the pieces into their box, he made haste to take his
place, apologizing for his tardiness by saying that he had been to the
door with Tom.

“But, Hal,” said Mrs. Fenimore, as if a sudden thought struck her, “why
don’t you sometimes invite one of the boys who know the game better?
you seem always to have some little atom of a fellow who has not played
three games in his life, and you have nothing to do but beat him.”

“That’s the very fun of it,” replied Hal; “I beat Tom all out just now,
and sent him home feeling meaner than the fag end of nothing. That’s
the way of course if you ever come across a fellow that isn’t smart
enough to defend himself.”

“Why, Hal Fenimore! Do you say such a thing as that? You certainly
never learned such principles at home, and I should be very sorry to
think you had gathered them up since you came to be with your uncle and
me.”

“I didn’t know it was principles,” said Hal, coming down a little from
his high horse of complacency; “I never thought anything about it,
in any way, only a fellow always likes to make another feel a little
shabby if he can, because then he feels finer himself.”

“Why, Hal!” was all the lady could exclaim, as she turned to look
closely in his face to see if he was really in earnest. “I wonder
how you would have liked chess-playing if your uncle had taken that
way to ‘feel fine’ as you call it, when he taught you? As far as I
can recollect, he found his pleasure entirely in encouraging you, and
helping you on over the rough places till you were able to stand by
yourself.”

“Oh, that’s different,” said Hal. “Men don’t feel like boys. I suppose
when I am a man, I shall teach my small nephews and nieces, and never
see a mistake they make.”

“I don’t know about that,” said his uncle; “you’ll be pretty likely to
find yourself a grown-up Hal Fenimore when that day comes, and your
friends Tom Haggartys still, and nothing more or less. I give you fair
warning. A good deal depends upon how you strike out with your pawns,
in real life as well as in chess, my boy.”

“But men try to get ahead of each other, and they fight battles and get
victories,” persisted Hal.

“I beg your pardon,” said his uncle, “high-minded men don’t like to
fight battles with adversaries much weaker than themselves; and as for
‘getting ahead,’ that is a very different thing from standing still and
crowing over some poor little companion that you have managed to push
down.”

“Well,” said Hal, who found the discussion did not seem to turn very
decidedly in his favor, “I only know how boys do; but one thing they
have to look sharp for is having their lessons, and I must get to mine
in a great hurry now, if you will excuse me.”

The library fire crackled and glowed in the grate until it almost
seemed a pleasant thing that the evenings were getting frosty, and Hal
soon forgot all questions of mutual rights, in the more pressing one
of division of fractions, which took such complete possession of him
that he started as if out of a dream, at the sound of his aunt’s voice
saying, “I declare, Hal, I think I’ll invite Tom Haggarty here, and
give him lessons every evening for a week. He’s a bright little fellow,
and would be a match for you, if he didn’t beat you, in a very short
time.”

Poor little Tom! If he could only have heard her say it, what a comfort
it would have been! The miserable feeling that had come over him as he
said Good-night to Hal, had stuck fast ever since, till he had fairly
gone to bed to get rid of it, and was lying at that moment, with his
little cold nose tucked away under the blankets, trying to smother the
conviction that he was the stupidest and most insignificant fellow in
the world, and that Hal would be sure to remind him of it at school the
next day.

“Now, Aunt Melanie!” exclaimed Hal, “I can’t understand how you make so
much of that game of chess. Tom will find a boy smaller than himself
stumbling at his lesson to-morrow, and he’ll crow over him, as uncle
calls it, and then that little one will find another pushed out at a
game of ball and have his crow, and so they will all take their turns
and come out even.”

“Take their turns at what?” said his uncle, looking up from his
newspaper. “At putting on all manner of airs with themselves, when they
have really done something contemptible, and then at being made to feel
contemptible when perhaps they have done the best they could. It hurts
either way, my boy, and it isn’t starting with your pieces in good
range, let me tell you once more.”

“Well,” said Hal, growing a little uncomfortable again, “I wish I
could get these figures into range, at all events. I believe there’s
no battleground where things go quite so hard as they do on a fellow’s
slate;” and plunging in again amid rules and examples, he thought
little more of poor Tom or his woes, until he went to join him in the
land of dreams.




CHAPTER II.


The golden shower that the old butternut sent down upon the queer roof
outside the city, was the nearest approach to the real thing the house
ever saw, for though it had had its day with very grand people, they
had all died or moved away long ago, and left it to grow shabby and
old-fashioned as it might, until at last the city had bought it for a
very small sum, and established within its walls the few old people
and strays that the authorities were bound to support. So now it was
nothing more nor less than the city almshouse, and the strip of land
running back from it to the road behind, was called the poor-farm,
though it seemed rather as an odd sort of compliment to the paupers,
(boarders they preferred to be called,) than as a statement of fact,
for there was only room to raise such vegetables as were needed for
daily use in the summer, and the potatoes and great yellow pumpkins
that were stored away for winter-days.

But old Ben, who had the care of the garden, such as it was, was proud
enough of his charge, and would have ruffled up in a moment at any one
who dared to call it small.

Ben had seen better days himself, as well as the old house, and had
kept many a rich man’s grounds and conservatories in hand; but after
all, was not a garden a garden wherever it was, and had not the good
Lord called himself a husbandman, and said that he walked in the garden
of his spices?

So when Ben found himself sick and unable to stir from his little room,
just as all the winter things were ready to be brought in, it fretted
and troubled him terribly for a few days, but at last he grew quiet.
They might wait, he said; he was waiting himself till the Husbandman
should see fit to bring him in. He did not have to wait long; and when
the matron saw that he was really gone, she seemed to hear the words he
had repeated so many times ringing in her ears.

“Waiting! Dear, dear, and what else are we all doing? What are any of
us doing here but to wait?” she had said to old Sue on the morning when
they saw that harvest-time had come for Ben at last.

Sue had nodded assent, and a queer little bit of humanity, half
standing, half sitting, quite unnoticed, in one of the queer old
windows, had nodded too, but not for himself. He could not suppose she
meant to include him.

“All but me!” he added to himself; that was what he always said, and
somehow it never did seem as if anything was intended for him. The
women had not noticed him, partly because he was so small, his great,
dreamy eyes looking over at them from a point hardly higher than the
window-sill, and partly because no one ever noticed Creepy further than
to speak a kind word, or to manage some little thing that he thought
might go towards his comfort. He came and went as he liked, but so
noiselessly that the gaze of his great eyes, devouring everything from
one corner to another, made the new-comers start, until they were used
to it, and found out at last that it was only “the poor crooked thing,”
as Mrs. Ganderby the matron called him--the stray child with the
crooked back, whom no one had ever claimed or ever would.

No one ever asked any work of Creepy, and indeed it seemed doubtful
whether anything would ever be found for those white hands, so like a
baby’s in their powerless touch; and it was not always certain, after
all, that one would meet him here or there about the house. There
were days and weeks together when he was only able to sit where some
one placed his chair; in summer oftenest under the shade of the old
butternut, and in winter by some one of the queer little windows where
the sun could lie the longest. Old Enoch had made the chair for him,
and a most remarkable specimen of handicraft it was.

“Does credit to your head and heart, Enoch,” said the doctor when he
saw it.

Enoch took off his hat and made the best bow his rheumatism would
allow; but pleasant as it was to receive a compliment from the doctor,
even that could not add to his pride in his work.

“Thanks,” he said. “In course I ought to know my business, for ’twas
the best master-workman in the country round I was ’prenticed to, and
’twas more than forty year my work was called a match to his, far and
near, and would have been yet to this day, if a fall from the big
steeple hadn’t brought me down to stiff joints for the rest of my old
age. Ben had a great deal to say about gardening, to be sure, but what
good would people get out of potatoes to put in their mouths if they
had not a shelter over their heads? I should like to ask. And Ben was
always making it such a thing to remember that the blessed Lord called
himself a husbandman when He was here; but was He not a carpenter
first and foremost, and before he even talked a word about sowing seed?”

Ah! “blessed Lord” indeed! Who else could have made poverty and work
seem sweet?

So there sat Creepy, always looking and listening, never saying
anything about the pain in his crooked little back, even when it was at
the worst; never saying much about anything, in fact, only nodding and
smiling quietly while he listened to the rest. Except, to be sure, the
one little thing that he was always saying, the same that he had said
in Ben’s room; but even that was almost always whispered to himself.

“All but me!”

And indeed it did not seem that many things were intended to include
Creepy. The other paupers had their times of getting new clothing
allowed, but it was never considered necessary for Creepy; the matron
always found some portion of some cast-off garment that had resisted
wear and tear sufficiently to be brought round again, by her devices,
into the right size and shape for “the poor crooked thing,” as she
always called him; “it took such a scrap,” she used to say, “though
dear knows it had been a precious job to worry out a pattern for such a
back and shoulders. She didn’t know whose wit and patience would ever
have done it but her own.”

And when the census-taker came, Creepy sat in his hollow chair, and
fixed his great dark eyes upon them both, while she gave the names of
Enoch and Sue, and the twenty or more, older or younger, who made up
the list of their companions.

“And so that’s all, is it?” said the census-taker.

“That’s all,” replied the matron.

“That’s all,” repeated Creepy, nodding, “all but me.”

“Now may Heaven forgive me,” exclaimed the matron, as passing through
the old porch she caught sight of Creepy, “if I did not speak the
truth; but who would ever have thought of the poor crooked thing, and
more than all, of giving such a name as that to go and be printed
before all the world, which no one knows who gave it to him, more than
where he came from himself, may the good Lord have pity upon him.”

She bustled on in too much haste to let her conscience smite her very
deeply, for there was a stir in the almshouse that morning. It was one
of the glorious golden days in October, and from time immemorial it had
been the custom of the house, once in the year, for every one, old and
young, to get work out of the way, don their best clothes, and set off
in a triumphant march still farther out beyond the city, out to the
great belt of yellow woods that lay just on the border of the bay. And
there they would rustle about in the fallen leaves like children, and
fill up the emptied lunch-baskets with nuts for the winter evenings,
and never come back till the golden light of afternoon began to
falter, and it was time to get home before twilight damp should fall
on rheumatic bones. And this was the morning for them, this time. But
they never had been so late getting off. The census-taker had hindered
the matron until she declared at last when he was really gone she was
in such a toss she hardly knew which way to turn first; and then they
missed Ben who had always been such a dependence and it seemed as if
something was all wrong, going without him for the first time.

But they were off at last, and Creepy watched them until the last
figure disappeared under some yellow trees that stood at the corner of
the road. It was Sue, and she was just taking Enoch’s lunch-basket out
of his hand.

“Give it to me, man,” she said, “are you forgetting all about that lame
shoulder? ’Twill be stiffer than a rusty hinge to-morrow.”

“It’s you who are forgetting,” said Enoch. “You might remember that you
are five years older than any one of us, and that your feet will be
failing you before we reach the next turn.”

“And isn’t this the very day of the year for forgetting?” answered Sue.
“We always forget on this day even that we are paupers, for are not the
soft breeze and the blue hills and the crystal air around us the good
Lord’s, and has he not given all his creatures a share in them alike?”

“What a thing it must be,” Creepy sat thinking to himself, “to move so
light and free as they do, and to go so far. It seems as though they
were all melted into gold, passing under those trees, and that’s the
last I see of them.”

The last he saw of Sue and the rest, but what came pushing out from
under the gold, and nearing the almshouse so fast that Creepy saw
it plainer and plainer every moment? A jet-black horse and a light
chaise--Creepy knew them in an instant. It was the city physician’s
chaise, Dr. Thorndyke’s, and had stood at the almshouse door a few
moments every day while Ben was sick.

The matron saw him too.

“Now whom can he have been visiting on that road?” she said to herself.
“Dear knows, there’s no house beyond us within the city limits but the
Jellerbys’ and the Diffendorffers’. And now he’s hurrying back for dear
life to folks of more importance.”

Very much mistaken was Mrs. Ganderby for once. So far from hurrying
back “for dear life,” the horse’s pace was slackened as it drew near
the almshouse, and just as it reached the gate, was drawn up with a
short rein.

“Now may all that’s good deliver us!” exclaimed the matron, pulling
her apron-strings into a hopeless knot, in her hurry to get it off.
“Who does he think is dying or ready to die in the house to-day, that
he must needs come unawares upon respectable housekeepers on the one
morning in the year when there’s excuse if everything is not in its
place as early as others. It’s none but a young doctor, surely, who has
time to call when he is not sent for.”

It was of no use; the knot would not be untied, and the doctor could
not be kept waiting, so Mrs. Ganderby proceeded to open the door,
smoothing her apron and her temper as she went, until the doctor
suspected nothing out of the way with either. And, indeed, it would
have been hard to keep any vexation in one’s soul, when fairly face to
face with Dr. Thorndyke, his own was so full of friendly greeting and
good cheer; and, moreover, there was something in the hearty, vigorous
way he was setting out in his own life that was positively refreshing,
and made one feel he must certainly be the man to attack any of the
numerous ills that might beset their own.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Ganderby,” said the doctor, “you wont take it amiss
that I have come this time without being sent for, I hope.”

“O dear, no, sir; I’m sure it’s only too great a compliment that you
should take a moment from all you have to think of. I’m only sorry our
people have all gone off to-day for a tramp to the woods, that I dare
say seems foolish enough to any one who has more range of pleasures;
but however that may be, they’re all gone, and there’s no one at home
but myself, nor no one could be more pleased to see you, sir; walk in,
I beg.”

“All gone,” repeated the doctor, a shade coming on his face. “Thank
you; but did you say they were all gone?”

“All but me,” nodded Creepy, from where he sat under the big tree,
sharing with wondering eyes and ears in the excitement of the doctor’s
visit; but no one noticed him.

“Gone for a day in the woods, sir,” said Mrs. Ganderby apologetically;
“it seems childish for people of the age and infirmities of most of
them; but it’s a rare day, sir, which it’s also a way of the house to
get away once or twice in the year.”

“You don’t mean to say that the lame child, the little cripple I have
seen here, has gone for a walk like that?”

“What, Creepy! Dear heart, the poor crooked thing couldn’t make his
feet serve him out of sight down the road, which it’s a strange thing I
never can seem to recollect mentioning him with the rest, although it
certainly isn’t from any want of pity for the child that Heaven hasn’t
seen fit to give a body like other people.”

“Then he is at home,” said the doctor, quite himself again; “and where
shall I find him, Mrs. Ganderby? It is rather early in the day to
detain a housekeeper, and I presume he may be quite at leisure.”

“Why certainly, sir; it’s little else than leisure the poor thing
has, sitting from morning till night in his chair, which, if you have
leisure enough to spare him a few moments, it may be a great blessing
to him, I am sure. He’s just there, sir, under the big butternut, and
if you’ll have the goodness to come in, I’ll bring him in a moment.”

“No, no,” said the doctor, discovering Creepy for the first time; “I’ll
go to him,” and with a few rapid steps down the gravel walk, he was at
Creepy’s side, leaving Mrs. Ganderby to declare at her leisure that
“wonders never would cease, though if the doctor had the goodness in
his heart, and the time on his hands to look after the poor crooked
thing, there was no one who needed it more; which it was not at all
probable that any one could do anything for the like of him, however.”




CHAPTER III.


Not so wonderful perhaps, after all. If there was a doctor in the
world, besides the soulless visitor of the year before, stupid enough
to praise the workmanship of a cripple’s chair, and never feel himself
roused at the demand made upon his own skill by the cripple, it was
not Dr. Thorndyke. He had not passed half way from the door of Ben’s
room to the bedside before his eye caught the strange, dwarfed, little
figure stationed motionless in the window, but following every movement
in the room with its great, dreamy eyes.

The matron admired and wondered at the careful but swift conclusion of
his study of Ben’s case; and when he had--she did not know how--made
her feel sure he understood it, and had shown so kind an interest in
the old man, and had gone again, it was scarcely five minutes by the
great clock in the hall since he came in. But she did not once imagine
that in the same time he had come closer to Creepy, and seen more
clearly what the poor, twisted little frame and the shrinking heart
were needing, than she had in the whole three years she had taken the
responsibilities of the almshouse upon herself.

“But not now,” he said to himself as he passed the window with so quick
a glance that Creepy had no idea he even saw him; “we want more time,
that child and I. I think there’s a chance there for a doctor to amount
to something, for once in a way.”

So here he was, for Dr. Thorndyke never lost much time when once he
had determined upon a thing; and he was fairly seated beside his new
patient before Creepy had recovered from the amazement of hearing
himself inquired for sufficiently to draw a breath.

“So, so, young man,” said the doctor, stooping for a quick look into
Creepy’s face, “enjoying the free air and the sunshine with the rest of
the world, eh? Well,” and he lifted his hat to catch the breeze, “it’s
a day to make the most of, and I haven’t seen a more tempting place to
pass an hour anywhere. How the light showers down through these yellow
leaves! Is there enough for you and me both for a little while, do you
think?”

Creepy could not have spoken to save his life, but the answer shone out
of his eyes, and the doctor was satisfied with that.

“It’s a day to make one feel like a boy again,” he said, pulling up a
handful of grass and showering the seeds through the sunlight. “And so
they’ve all imagined they were children and gone off to the woods, I
hear?”

“All but me,” said Creepy, nodding at the doctor, with eyes still fixed
upon his face.

“All but you; you thought this was your place, and kept it, eh? Well,
it’s not every one who has wisdom for that, though we all have our
places in the world, if we could but find them.”

“All but me,” said Creepy, nodding again.

The doctor shot another glance into his face. “You’re very much
mistaken,” he said; and then turning to pull more grasses, added
suddenly, “Why didn’t you go with them?”

“I never go anywhere.”

“And why not?” asked the doctor, tossing the seeds out into the air
again. “What would happen if you were to go? A pain here and there? A
pain in that back, for instance?”

The eyes answered again.

“And not a new pain? A pain that comes quite often, and stays as long
as it likes--is there at this very moment, perhaps?”

Creepy nodded, but he could not have spoken for his life. It seemed to
him he was talking face to face with a magician. How should _he_ know,
when the people in the house were never told, could only guess, and he
had seen none of them this morning.

“And don’t you know that’s all wrong?” went on the doctor. “Other boys
of your age play in the sunshine every hour they can get out from the
schoolmaster’s clutches.”

The never-failing answer came to Creepy’s lips, but he did not speak.

“Do you know what runs across the road, just beyond the turn under
those yellow trees? There is a brook down there, and not far below it
passes through a shady spot, and gets very deep and almost as cold as
ice. That’s the very place for trout! Suppose you and I go down when
the season comes round again, say next spring, for instance. There are
some great rocks there under the trees, and we could take it as lazily
as we liked.”

Now the doctor knew very well that if he had proposed that Creepy
should take him on his shoulders and prance away moonward, he could not
have amazed and bewildered him more; and it showed plainly enough in
Creepy’s face, but the doctor would not understand.

“You think it strange I could find the time, don’t you? That is true
enough; it could not come very often--once in a season, perhaps, as a
great treat. But for to-day it is pleasure enough to sit here in the
sunshine. I wonder who made this bench? The same hand that fitted your
chair, perhaps?”

“No,” said Creepy; “it was Ben. He used to make them while he was a
gardener. He got roots and crooked branches in the woods and twisted
them together. That was while he was waiting.”

“Waiting?” asked the doctor. “What was he waiting for?”

“Waiting to be gathered in. The matron says we’re all waiting. All but
me.”

“And why not you? Are you in such haste that you cannot wait? You
_must_ wait for spring, before we go fishing, at least. Then you shall
help me gather branches for just such a seat. I must have one on my
piazza. That is to say, if you can get away from school then, eh?” and
the doctor tossed out more seeds, and they floated away and showered
down over the walk, to start up and make Enoch a deal of hoeing in the
spring.

But nothing to compare with the thoughts he had tossed, and with
seemingly a more careless hand, into Creepy’s heart in the five
minutes he had been sitting on the rustic seat that had been such a
pride to Ben. And there was no waiting with them. Every one had struck
root already, and sprung up into some sudden, bewildering feeling,
until there was a terrible confusion in the little hot-bed. Why had the
doctor come to see him? No one ever came; no one ever sat down to talk
with him. Every one was kind, always kind; but every one went on his
own way. Go fishing! He go fishing? Had he not just told him he never
went anywhere? Could not he see for himself, for did not a doctor know
everything? And how should he help him cut down trees, or how should he
go to school? Schools were made for every one else, that is true; but
no one, except Ben, had ever helped him even so far as to read. Was the
doctor mocking him? Did he not see that he was only made to sit in his
shapeless chair, and feel the pain going up and down the crooked back
like a devouring thing? Why did he talk to him as he would talk to any
one else?

“Shall we call it an engagement?” said the doctor, looking quickly in
Creepy’s face again.

“What did you come here for?” cried Creepy, suddenly, with eyes and
voice. “Why do you ask me such things? You never saw me before!”

The doctor rose up and stood before his chair, stretching himself to
his full height.

“Yes I have seen you before, and you have seen me. You have seen how
strong I am, how light and quick my step is, how full of life all my
veins are, and how that makes it a pleasant thing for me to live. And I
have seen how weak and tired you are, and how your life is only to sit
here and bear pain, as no child ought to do. And that is why I came,
to see what can be done about it all! Don’t you know that sick people
get well, and weak people strong, and crooked limbs are made straight,
sometimes?”

The burning eyes were dropped now, and Creepy only smiled and shook his
head.

“Don’t you know that, my little man?”

“All but me.”

The doctor stooped and lifting the lame child gently from his chair,
gathered him up in his arms and held him, looking down into his face.

“Do you know you are mistaken? I do not think we can make things
altogether straight with you, that is true; but I think we can send
that pain where it will never find its way back again, and put
strength into those limbs, so that you shall go and come with the rest,
and find out what it really is to live and move in God’s world; _that_
is what I want to see about. I do not feel any doubt we shall succeed.
Shall we try?”

The doctor could not see under the great drooping eyelids and the
quivering lashes, but Creepy scarcely seemed to breathe. Not with the
thought of what the doctor had said, for his words only seemed a sound
passing out into the sunshine; their meaning did not touch him as even
a possibility. But he was speaking, was here, was holding him tenderly
in his arms--that by itself was bewildering enough--he could only hold
his breath and lie still.

“So you don’t say no? You are not afraid to try?”

Creepy shook his head.

“Shall we begin to-morrow?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said the doctor, with a quick but gentle pressure of the strong
arms, and then they placed Creepy carefully in the queer chair; the
doctor looked closely into his face once, and said Good-by. In another
moment he had passed over the walk where the scattered seeds were to
make so much trouble, sprung into the chaise, and given the rein to
the black horse, and the sound of its hoofs was ringing back from
halfway down to the turn in the road under the yellow trees.

Great was the excitement in the almshouse when the matron, after
bottling up the news of the doctor’s visit all day long, poured it out
on the returning party in the evening.

“He had been there for nothing in the world but to see the poor crooked
thing, though with manners enough to make a show of asking for the
rest, and had sat talking under the butternut-tree for a full half
hour, five times as long as he had ever stayed by Ben when he was
dying; which she couldn’t get the child to repeat the half he had
said; but the most she could make out was, he was coming every day,
or for aught she knew three times a day, to try some plan of his own
to straighten the poor thing out: which she was sure it was more like
the Lord regarding the sparrows sold for a farthing than any other
happening she had ever seen, if he had sent a young man of the sense
and skill of that one, all unrequested, to lay himself out to mend a
little life like that. And no one could be more rejoiced than she if
he could do it, nor more ready to give praise for a miracle of her own
times, though at the same time she knew it was only a young doctor who
could afford to go about picking up cases that never sent for him, and
that nobody could say were responsible to him in one way or another, if
he did not choose to see it.”

The basket of nuts for the winter evenings, which had made such work
with the arms of one after another of the party before they got it
home, was forgotten where it stood, while they listened with open
mouths and ears to the matron’s speech, and when Enoch in his haste
to go and see if Creepy looked just the same after what had happened,
struck it with his foot and sent the contents rolling half across the
room, no one said a word, or stirred from his place to gather them up.

“Dear, dear!” said Sue, “but the Lord remembers all in their turn, if
they do but wait his time! And it’s come sooner to him than to some,
but there never was patienter waiting, nor would have been for a
hundred times as long, if it had been His will!”

“Well, there’ll be waiting enough yet, to see what comes of it all,”
said the matron. “Sometimes doctors cure and sometimes they kill, and
sometimes they do nothing at all, which it remains to be seen whether
it will be one or the other with the poor crooked thing.”

“Dear, dear,” said the old woman who had taken the most care of Ben,
“what are we all doing here but to wait?” and then finding there was
really nothing more to be heard, she and Sue bustled off to see about
supper, and then to carry their tired bones to rest, and to dream over
all the events of the wonderful day.




CHAPTER IV.


Such a battery of eyes as was on the watch for the doctor’s visit the
next morning! Not one of the paupers could be persuaded to any work
that would take his individual pair out of range of the street; each
one had an excellent reason for choosing a station where he could shoot
a glance out of the window, or down the yard, and no very long interval
was allowed between the shots either. Mrs. Ganderby herself found it
highly important to keep in the front part of the house and just make
sure that Enoch was going on well with a bit of repair he had set
himself about on the doorstep. Creepy sat under the butternut-tree, and
the yellow leaves had fluttered down till they lay in a golden circle
around his queer little chair; the doorstep was mended, Mrs. Ganderby
could not find another spot out of order within reach of the front
windows; one after another the old clock in the hall had ticked away
the hours of the glistening October morning, and still no black horse
came dashing up before the door. “If I hadn’t seen the doctor with my
own eyes yesterday,” said Mrs. Ganderby, “I should say it was all a
light-headed notion of the poor crooked thing that he was here at all,
which he certainly was here, however; but what he had to say about
coming again is another question that will take care of itself before
the day is gone.”

[Illustration]

Greater and greater grew the wonder and suspense. Was the doctor coming
at all, and what was he going to do if he came? That was so far beyond
what they knew, that they set themselves to imagining, until if they
had seen him alight, one hand holding a terrible knife, with which to
remove the lame child’s poor twisted spine, and the other a big anvil
on which to hammer it straight again, they would not have been very
much more astonished. Could they believe their eyes and ears, when at
last, as the sun was getting round by the west, the ring of the horse’s
hoofs was heard, and almost before he was fairly reined up, the doctor
sprung out empty-handed, and was on the doorstep chatting with Mrs.
Ganderby as gayly as if nothing of any solemnity had ever happened in
the world, or was expected to happen while it should stand?

Sue crept round to the shadow of the jut where the old clock stood,
just to get an idea of what he was saying. Praising the matron’s bed of
nasturtiums which she had saved from the frost, and asking her what
receipt she used for pickling them! Dear, dear, but this was a strange
world! What had doctors to do with pickles? and how were they to notice
the taste of one thing from another, coming in to dinner as they did
with pockets full of poisons, and the cries of the sick and dying in
their ears? But hark! They had stopped talking about the nasturtiums.

“By the way, Mrs. Ganderby,” said the doctor, “that little fellow that
I was talking with yesterday, the lame child; it seems to me something
might be done for him, and I propose that we should try. It’s rather
dull music for a boy of his age; ten or twelve is he, Mrs. Ganderby?”

“Indeed, sir, the land knows as well as any of us do, how old the poor
crooked thing may be; you can judge better perhaps yourself, sir. But
whether it’s more or less, it seems a cruel thing and unnatural like,
to see him sit in that chair and let all the summer-days go by, and
know no more of what living is than some poor squirrel shut up in its
cage.”

“Precisely what I was going to say, Mrs. Ganderby, and though of course
it would be folly to talk of bringing everything right, in a case like
that, still I am sure we can do a great deal. I say ‘we,’ because I
shall have to depend a great deal on your kindness in making things go
as I wish.”

“Well certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Ganderby, stroking her apron and her
gratified pride at the same time; “if there should be anything in my
power, which I should have been the last one, however, to suppose a
poor drought-stricken little life like that could be brought to look up
much in this world.”

“I want him to have some pleasures,” said the doctor; “something for
those eyes to look at besides what they have dreamed over for a year.
Books, for instance. Perhaps there is not a great variety in the house?”

“Well, sir, as to that, you would hardly expect the number to be
great; but such as they are, I don’t at this moment remember just what
the poor crooked thing’s book learning may be, though I mind that I
sometimes used to see Ben and himself over a page together when Ben was
here. I should say he knew his letters at least.”

The doctor snapped one of Enoch’s doorstep splinters in two, and sent
it flying halfway up the horsechestnut-tree that stood a few paces off
the grand walk, and in another moment Sue had to dart from her retreat
in her corner, for Mrs. Ganderby was coming in, and the doctor was
already making a pathway through the yellow circle around Creepy’s
chair.

And in another half-hour he was gone, and what wonderful thing had
been done, so far as Creepy was concerned, no one could see; but for
the rest of the house, half the people in it had been set to work.
Mrs. Ganderby was bustling about, declaring she only hoped she might
have strength given her to carry on her mind all the ifs and ands,
and things to be done and undone, the doctor had laid out for her to
think of; and something had been slipped into Enoch’s hand, and thence
into his pocket, nobody knew what; but he had come in with great airs
of importance, and was telling every one how he was to go to the
wheelwright’s and get a pair of wheels to be fitted to Creepy’s chair,
and how he was to wheel him down the road every sunny day, and let
him see what lay beyond the turn, under the trees, or anywhere else
he might take a fancy to go. And Sue, who had once taught a district
school in the village where she was born, for a whole summer term, was
engaged to spend half an hour every afternoon, in leading Creepy out
among the mysteries of an arithmetic, slate, and pencil, that were to
be sent to him the next day.

It was well for Creepy that he did not hear all this for an hour or
more after the doctor went away, for he had excitement enough in
his own part of the visit, and yet they had seemed to be having the
quietest talk in the world, for the most part.

“So they got a big basket of nuts yesterday, did they?” the doctor
asked carelessly as he sat down. “Well, that is good sport, but nothing
to compare with trouting. Now, when you and I go trouting, some
day--well, you’ll see how it all is. The nuts don’t try to get away
from you and the trout do--that is one difference; but the fact is,
it’s such very great sport, there’s no use in trying to describe it,
though there have been books written about trouting. Did you ever see
one?”

“No,” said Creepy with great wondering eyes.

“Very likely, but you’ll come across them some day. In the meantime I
suppose you read what you like best, or do you take up whatever comes
in your way?”

“Nothing does come in my way,” said Creepy, “since Ben died. He only
had two books, but they gave them away to somebody, afterwards, and
that’s all there were in the house.”

“That was the whole library?” asked the doctor, with a smile Creepy did
not exactly understand.

“Yes, that was all, and there were pieces gone off from both of them,
but there was enough left for Ben to teach me.”

“So Ben taught you, did he?” said the doctor, having learned exactly
what he wished. “Ben was a rare fellow, to make schoolmaster and
gardener at once. Did he ever teach you, I wonder, how much flint there
is in a stalk of grass like this?” And he pulled one up, and began to
make mischief with the seeds again.

“Queer, isn’t it?” he went on, as Creepy only said “No,” with a still
more wondering look. “And there is still more in a stalk of wheat;
that is what makes it strong and straight, partly, and ought to make
you strong and straight too, when you eat it. By the way,” turning his
eyes suddenly upon the queer little jacket Mrs. Ganderby’s “wits and
patience” had “worried out,” “would you mind taking that jacket off one
moment, and letting me just pass my fingers up and down your back?”

Creepy’s hands trembled a little, but he got it off. He never liked to
have anything touch his back, it always hurt him so.

“There,” said the doctor; “now tell me, please, do you feel any pain
when I put my finger here?”

It was the gentlest and tenderest of touches, but it was hard for the
lame child to bear. He hesitated, but the doctor waited for an answer.

“Yes,” he said.

“Ah! and now here, please. Do you feel this same pain now?” as he
removed the touch to another point.

“Yes.”

“And here too?” moving it again.

“Yes.”

“Just as I thought. Now that’s all wrong. We must put a stop to that
somehow or other. I wonder if I can’t get this jacket on again without
as much trouble as it would give you?” and the doctor took up the
shapeless little thing as gently as Ben ever handled the choicest
hot-house plant. Creepy never could tell how it went on, only the wish
ran through his mind that the doctor would always do it for him. It was
so easy, and not a bit of the pain he always felt so long after he put
it on himself.

“Don’t you think that is a pretty horse of mine?” began the doctor,
sitting down again on Ben’s seat. “We must have a ride after him
together some day. Not just now, perhaps--it is going to be cold very
soon-but when the warm spring days come again, then we’ll try it. And
you’ll be having a good pull at your school-books in the meantime, I
suppose. Boys of your age are all busy with their arithmetics and ugly
things of that kind, eh?”

Creepy shook his head.

“All but me.”

“And why not you? Don’t you know every one has to serve his time with
these things, to get ready for other work by-and-by?”

“All but--”

“Tut!” said the doctor, getting up quickly and sending his last bunch
of grass stalks fluttering out on the wind. “Who taught you to say
that? Whoever it was made a great mistake, or wanted to cheat you out
of your rights, I don’t know which. The world was made for you, just as
much as for any one else, and you are to have your share, and find your
place in it with the rest. Will you remember that, my little man?” and
he stopped for a look in Creepy’s face.

He could not see that Creepy’s heart was throbbing his breath away with
all the watching and the wonder, and the thanks that had gathered up
there since morning, and with hearing such words spoken, although they
didn’t seem any more real than yesterday.

But he saw how it was swelling up the veins in his forehead, and
drooping the eyelids over the great eyes, and he did not wait for
an answer, but walked away and paced back and forth over the yellow
carpet. Then he sat down on the rustic seat again, and chatted as
he had the day before, of what lay out in the world, and along the
trout-stream; then he said Good-by, had his talk with Mrs. Ganderby,
found Enoch and Sue, and settled matters with them, and was off. And no
one suspected that he had been up and at work all the night before, and
had not been able to catch a moment from the duties of the day, until
just then, and that he still saw work ahead to stretch well on into the
night, before there was a chance of rest.

Hal Fenimore and Tom Haggarty had but just commenced their evening with
library fires crackling and companions gay enough to atone for all
the ups and downs of the day’s school, when Creepy slipped off to his
little bed, thankful to lie down and see if his heart would not stop
that beating that was tiring him so, and if the pain in his back would
let him lie still enough to straighten out all the thoughts that were
making such confusion in his brain.

What had the doctor said? There was a place in the world and a share
in it for him, as well as the rest? But the place must be just here,
under the old butternut; it couldn’t be anywhere else. And he was to
grow stronger, and the pain to grow less, every month until spring,
and then begin to go to school like other boys. What a strange sound
that had! It was pleasant to have the doctor say so; it seemed like a
dream; but one had always to wake up from dreams, and find things were
not so. “All boys go to school.” All but--ah, the doctor did not like
to have him say that. At all events, he was to have a book and study;
and he was to see with his own eyes what lay beyond the turn in the
road. Enoch was to see to his going, and Sue and Mrs. Ganderby were
to do other things, and the doctor was coming again. All these people
thinking of him! It was of no use trying to understand it; if he could
only go to sleep! And yet he feared the dream would be gone when he
waked in the morning; he should find not a word of all to be true.

He shut his eyes just for a moment as he thought, but when he opened
them again the sun was shining through the patched curtain at the
window, and the night was gone. Had the dream taken flight with it?
There was but one way to find out, so he dressed himself with trembling
fingers and crept noiselessly out towards his crooked chair. Enoch
was there before him. Tools lying all around on the yellow leaves, and
the old carpenter so busy with his work that he did not hear Creepy’s
footsteps rustling over them too. The sun had not been fairly above
the horizon before Enoch was off in search of those wheels, belaboring
himself at every step of the way for a stupid blockhead that could
make a chair for a cripple, and never have the idea of putting on a
running-gear come into his head, though he had it before his eyes every
day that the one it was made for never went outside the fence from one
year’s end to another! But where would the money have come from if he
had thought of it ever so long ago? Money makes most wheels turn in
this world, and it’s not strange if a five-dollar bill put into your
hand should bring some of them round to a lame child’s corner once in
a way, as well as elsewhere. A likely young man, that doctor, and wise
enough to know where to choose the right workman to do his job; that
was more than could always be said of them, much as they might know
about people that were laid on their beds and good for nothing!




CHAPTER V.


The black horse had begun his work in some of the up-town streets
before Enoch had finished his, and was hurrying past a handsome brick
building just as a crowd of boys were entering it.

“There’s about the place, now,” said Doctor Thorndyke, “where I’d
like to see my little patient with the crooked back, after I once get
him on his feet again. He’d hold his own with the best of them in his
books, if he couldn’t in a foot-race, I’ll warrant, if he only had the
chance; and there’s nothing that would shake him up, and put a stop to
that miserable ‘all but me’ notion of his, like taking his place among
his mates, as he would in a school like that. The only thing is to
get him there. It takes a good deal of a back to sit at one of those
desks;” upon which the doctor fell into such a fit of musing that he
drove three doors beyond the house he was aiming at before he bethought
himself what he was about.

Meanwhile the schoolhouse, at which he had looked with such covetous
eyes for Creepy, seemed half alive with hustling, bustling boys; the
five-minute bell had already rung, and all were making the best of
their way to their places, some flying up to the second floor, two
stairs at a time, some passing in more quietly at other doors, while
here and there a lingering step ventured on a few seconds’ delay to
steal a last glance at a lesson that would have no further chance
after exercises were once commenced. Only one figure stood still at
the foot of the stairs: poor little Tom Haggarty, who had slept off
his humiliation about the chess to some extent, but felt it rushing on
again with most disagreeable force at sight of Hal, and was terribly
anxious to keep at a safe distance from him for the present.

“If I can just keep out of his track till recess,” thought Tom, “he’ll
get warmed up with something else, and wont be apt to think of it. _I_
don’t want him to be telling all the boys he can wind me round his
finger in a game like that. ’Twasn’t hardly fair, either, for I hadn’t
tried but two or three times, and he’s had lots of lessons, and there’s
no end of pieces and moves to carry in a fellow’s head.”

But Hal was one of the lingerers, and it seemed as if he never would
move on. All the other boys on his floor had passed in, and were taking
their seats, while with half an eye on the clock, Hal still stood
outside the partly open door mulling over his arithmetic lesson, that
he knew would be the first to come upon the floor. Tick, tick, went the
clock, and pit-a-pat went Tom’s heart. Could he dare another second? If
that door should be shut before he reached the top of the stairs, there
was a tardy mark for him, and he was making a tremendous effort about
marks this term. Would Hal never move? Perhaps he could creep up softly
without his noticing. He put his foot on the first stair, then on the
second, keeping his eye on Hal, when suddenly he was no longer there.
He had glided in and the door was shut! In a second Tom was at the top
and with his hand on the door-knob. The monitor, who had not really
removed his own from it to turn the key, allowed it to open. Tom who
felt small enough at that moment to have gone through the keyhole, was
admitted, and stealing a glance at Hal, already in his seat, met a look
that told him things were worse than ever.

He would have given his new hat if he had not seen it, for let him
work as he would at his lessons, that look, with what it promised for
recess, hung about him like some ugly hobgoblin all the morning, and
seemed to put a twist into everything. He called Eheu a noun, and
said the Barbadoes were in the Arctic ocean, and finished an algebra
example, on the blackboard, in long division, and altogether, when
recess came, he felt so completely down that he didn’t care about going
out at all, and if he had cared ever so much, he would not have come
across Hal for all the recesses in the quarter. So he sat at his desk,
and heard the shouts of some tremendous fun coming up to his window,
and when the rest came in all aglow with October sun and air, his head
ached, and he couldn’t see head or tail to the lesson that lay before
him.

But one o’clock came at last; out poured the stream again, and luckless
Tom ran on with the rest, hoping that the tide swelled high enough to
hide him between the waves, but they parted just in time to let Hal get
a glimpse of him.

“Hallo, Checkmaty!” he shouted, “how are bishops this morning? Don’t
you want to send your compliments to a fellow’s queen?”

“Checkmaty?” echoed Ned Farraday, a boy in the next class to Tom’s;
“what’s that? Did you corner him?”

“Corner him! you ought to have seen me wind him up last night! There
wasn’t as much left of him as would point off a fraction. If he had
been as slow with his moves as he was in getting to school this
morning, he might have done better. How’s that tardy mark going to look
on the report, my man? ’Twont help much towards your three hundred, eh?”

“I wasn’t tardy!” answered Tom defiantly, for the question of the three
hundred was too tender to bear touching.

“Oh, you weren’t!” cried Hal. “Wasn’t he, boys? you saw as well as I
did.”

“Didn’t he get in?” asked one of the boys. “I didn’t see.”

“Get in!” said Ned Farraday, taking up the keynote Hal had given; “I
should think not much! The door was shut fair and square before it saw
his shadow. If anybody don’t believe it they can look on the book and
see.”

“Look on the book and see,” set up a chorus of voices on all sides.

“I tell you there’s no mark there,” declared Tom again, getting very
red, and the miserable feeling that had got as far as his pockets last
night, was running down to his very boots.

“I wouldn’t say much about marks if I were you, Ned Farraday,” called
out a boy a little larger than he. “I heard the professor call your
Latin a failure, and that marks you down to six, and you know very
well if Tom _was_ tardy it only marks him eight.”

Ned grew red in his turn and drew in his horns at once, but Hal went on.

“I say, Checkmaty, how long has Eheu been a noun? Ever since it meant a
_lass_, hasn’t it?”

“And _I_ say,” interposed a voice that had not yet spoken, “what’s the
use of badgering a fellow that’s smaller than any nine out of ten of
you here, and can keep up with the best of you if you only give him a
chance. I heard the professor say Tom was six months ahead of his age
in his classes; and as for this morning, you know well enough there’s
no tardy mark when the door hasn’t been locked. Why can’t you be men
enough to see there’s no fun in crowding a fellow? Come along, Tom;
we’re going to have a game of base-ball this afternoon, and I want you
for first pitcher. Let’s all go and get dinner, and be on the ground at
four o’clock.”

It was Aleck Halliday, and Tom had felt his heart come up out of his
boots with a great thump the instant he heard his voice, for he knew
well enough it never spoke except to make somebody feel all right, if
not positively jolly.

He slipped over to Aleck’s side and walked along feeling safe in the
shadow of his tall shoulders, and almost sunshiny once more in the
light of his handsome, friendly face. Tom had often wondered what Aleck
was made of; he was sure there was some material in his composition
very different from what went into other boys, but he had never
quite decided whether it was what usually went to make up princes,
or something higher still and supposed to have wings. Any how, a boy
that was being “badgered,” as he called it, might be sure Aleck would
fume and chafe a few minutes, as a great, noble Newfoundland might
watch a cat worrying a mouse, and then, when he couldn’t bear it any
longer, plunge in and scatter the sport, and stand guard by some little
nook or cranny till the victim had a chance to escape. And as for the
badgerers, an indefinite suspicion that they had been doing something
mean was very sure to creep over them, and the ghost of an idea that it
might be nobler sport to help a fellow along, than to push him down,
would glimmer faintly at them from a distance; but unfortunately this
never lasted long, and they were pretty sure to be ready for the next
mouse that might come in their way.

But for this time the fun was over; Tom was safe, and the mousers
scattered off in search of a more substantial mouthful in the shape
of dinner, and one or two lessons to be got well in hand before four
o’clock, so that no demands of body or brain should interfere with the
promised fun on the ball-ground.

No one was more fond of the game than Tom; and though he was the
smallest boy in his set, he was considered one of the best players,
for he was swift as a deer, and had a true eye and hand, and a deal of
pluck at carrying out what he undertook; that is to say, so long as
nobody snubbed him, but that was the one thing he could not stand, and
the moment anybody did it, he felt everything that would ever make a
man of him oozing out at his finger-ends, and was ready to knock under
for ever. He wished he wasn’t such a little fool about it; other boys
snubbed each other, and were snubbed in turn a hundred times a day,
and never seemed to mind it much, but it was no use with him. If there
were only more Aleck Hallidays! But never mind. He was going to play
a good game this afternoon, he felt it in his bones, and perhaps Hal
would think something of him again, if he made a first-rate run for his
side--of course he would be on his side if he were to play with Aleck.

But to his surprise he found Hal had decided to play a match-game
against Aleck; and Tom, feeling pretty strong under his captain’s
shadow, ventured to prophesy a victory for his own side.

“Where are you going to get it?” asked Hal.

“We’ve got better fellows on our side than you have,” answered Tom,
with an innocent idea that the truth should be spoken at all times.

“I suppose you count yourself among them,” said Hal with a sneer; “name
them over, and when they play.”

“No, I don’t count myself among them,” said Tom, wishing he had sense
enough to let things alone; but Aleck calling to Hal just then to
choose an umpire, the mouse ran off once more.

The umpire and the scorer were soon chosen; the umpire pitched up
a cent, which coming down in Aleck’s favor, gave him his choice of
innings, and he of course chose the second.

As Hal was captain of his side, he struck first, and sent the ball a
little beyond Tom, who was pitcher. Tom picked it up and threw it to
the first-baseman, who caught it on the fly just as Hal was a single
step from the base.

Tom halloed for judgment, but Hal was pronounced “not out” by the
umpire.

“That isn’t fair,” said Tom.

“I say it is,” said Hal.

“It’s not. I wouldn’t play to it, Tom,” cried his left-fielder.

“Well, your side can get some one else, then,” said Hal.

“Never mind,” said the catcher on Tom’s side; “let’s draw lots for a
‘say so.’” The lot was drawn, and gave the decision in Hal’s favor.

“Three grunts for Tom,” said Hal, with the same disagreeable chuckle
that had worried Tom so much the night before.

“No, no,” cried Aleck; “it was out by fair rights.”

“You’re not going to dispute the umpire, are you?” said Hal; but the
umpire called time, and the game went on.

At Tom’s next pitch, Hal ran for the second base; but the catcher was
too quick for him, throwing the ball to the second-baseman, who caught
it, and this time Hal was fairly out.

“Judgment on that,” cried Hal and the second-baseman.

“Out on the second,” said the umpire.

“There!” cried Tom as Hal went past him; “that proves it was out on
the first, anyhow. A pretty place a player like you gets into when he
calls for judgment.”

Tom’s side was now in; if he could only do something that would put
him for once above the range of Hal’s success! Fired with this hope
and with the thought of winning laurels for such a captain as he had,
he took up the bat with the determination to do something brilliant;
but venturing one glance at Hal, caught sight of a sideways gesture
that he knew well enough was meant to remind him of the fatal swoop
of Hal’s bishops the night before, his hand faltered, and the ball,
instead of taking the direction he intended, struck directly in front
of him. There was no chance now but in his heels, and flying like a
deer, he made the first three bases successfully, but that was all. On
the home-base, he could not tell how it happened, he was put out by the
catcher.

“Aha!” came up a taunting laugh from Hal’s side; “there’s a case that
don’t call for judgment very much;” and Tom walked off and sat down by
some of his fellows, feeling miserable enough. What _was_ the reason
all games were so disagreeable, no matter how hard a fellow tried to do
his best?

“Never mind, Tom,” said Aleck’s cheery voice, “Davis will make up for
it, and you got those three bases handsomely.”

Tom looked up; he hadn’t ventured to raise his eyes before, lest Aleck
should show that he had disappointed him; but there he was, with just
as friendly a glow in his face as if Tom had covered him with glory.
Tom felt his heart warming under it again in an instant, and in another
moment Carter, the catcher, had knocked the ball down beyond the
centre-field, and got a home-run.

Tom felt all right again now, and began to cheer on the other men to
do their best, determined that he would bring in his own honors when
his turn came again. The next three runners got a score apiece, but the
fourth knocked a fly to left field, and was out; the next got out on
two strikes and Hal’s side was in again, with ten runs ahead when they
took the field.

The game however went on pretty equally. Aleck played his best, though
there were some mishaps and disappointments on each side, until the
eight inning, when Tom’s side got fairly “choked,” and left Hal’s still
ahead by ten runs.

“Who did you say had the best fellows on his side?” asked Hal
triumphantly, as he passed near Tom.

“Now Tom, my boy,” said Aleck, “this is our last chance; show us your
best playing and help the others on, and we’ll beat them yet.”

This was enough to have spurred Tom on to meet the thunders of a real
battle-field, if Aleck’s honor had demanded it, and he took his place
with all the determination of a Trojan.

But Hal saw it was his last chance too, and waiting till his second
baseman, who was also his second best man, was ready, told him to
strike directly for Tom and “scare him.” Tom started and thought
he was in time, but a cry from Hal of “There’s a queen’s head for
you, Checkmaty! Catch her!” flew faster than the ball. It came too
disagreeably on top of the surprise; Tom muffed the ball, and three
groans were set up from the other side.

Tom never could do anything after he had been hooted. He made a failure
of everything that followed. The rest seemed to catch discouragement
from him, and the game ended in favor of Hal’s side, with a majority of
eleven, the score being forty-one to thirty.

The boys crowded together to discuss the game, but Tom had a prodigious
amount of something to do at a distance. He could hear Aleck’s catcher
trying to prove that the second baseman had been all wrong somewhere,
and Hal’s triumphant laugh came floating down to where he stood; he
wouldn’t have gone any nearer him to hear all the discussions in the
world. And as for Aleck! he was sure he’d find it hard to forgive him,
this time, if never before.

He managed to slip off one side of the crowd, without much notice, and
made the best of his way toward home. What _was_ the reason things
always went wrong that he had anything to do with? Other boys didn’t
seem to have half the trouble, or else they didn’t mind it as much.
But he was sure Carter must have felt horridly to have Davis trying
to make out that he had done just the wrong thing, and the rest all
seemed so eager to have it proved. He wondered why there couldn’t be
some pleasure in proving a fellow had done well now and then; but there
couldn’t be, for nobody ever seemed to like it.

“I say, Tom,” shouted a voice behind him, and there was Aleck,
overtaking him with long strides.

“I say, Tom--hallo, old fellow, you’re not drawing such a long face as
that over a game of ball are you? It isn’t worth it, my man! It’s fun
enough while it lasts, but nothing after it’s over.”

“I was afraid you’d think it all my fault,” Tom managed to say, though
dreading even the sound of his own words.

“All your fault! Nonsense! you made as good a score as any of them, and
some of the others were out on more runs than you. I didn’t play any
too well myself, but ’twas the way luck would have it, I suppose, and
we’ll beat them all the same next time. But I was going to say, you’ve
been helping me all the afternoon, and I thought you were bothered with
those examples this morning; don’t you want a lift before to-morrow?”

“Helping him!” Tom could have hugged the ground he walked on!




CHAPTER VI.


How the October and November days flitted away! And when one knew
that December was coming, and the wheels of the queer chair could
never rattle over the frozen ground and plough through the snow! It
made no difference, time scurried on just the same. The only comfort
was in making the most of it, and that was certainly done at the
almshouse. Nobody counted the number of times the wheel-chair was
seen going slowly and carefully down toward the wonderful world that
lay out beyond the turn, or up the other way toward the city. And
sure as the hour came round, there was Sue ready for her part in the
doctor’s programme, and many a time the work carried her back to old
days until she forgot her bargain, and the half hour stretched on into
two or three times its length. How the pages were turned over in that
arithmetic! But that wasn’t all for Creepy. There were the doctor’s
visits! When he was there, such wonder, and such content; and when he
was gone, there were the hours to be counted till he would come again.
Every one in the house came to know the sound of the black horse’s
trot, coming down the road, and just how many seconds might be allowed
between its being reined up and the doctor’s having his hand on the
door-knob. Very few they were, the listeners soon found; there was
hardly time for Creepy’s heart to give a bound and say, “There he is!”
But after he was once at Creepy’s side, no one would have dreamed that
he was in a hurry. Time enough to hear just how many drives Enoch had
given him, and to see the lessons that had been gone over, and to ask
here and there, carelessly as it seemed, about the pain, and how the
medicines were going. Then there was always a little chat about what he
had seen going on in the city, and what the boys were doing there, so
that, as he used to say laughing, Creepy shouldn’t be altogether behind
the times when he took his place among them. Then a moment with Mrs.
Ganderby, or a compliment to Enoch, or Sue, and he was off again.

And all the while the days were slipping by, until November, dull
and grim as some of its last hours had been, was fairly crowded out,
the ground was frozen hard, and a few flakes of snow came fluttering
down. Then the doctor found Enoch standing, cap in hand, in the hall,
looking at the crooked chair, which, if it had been queer at first, was
certainly queerer still since he had rigged the “running-gear.”

“Is there any trouble, Enoch?” he asked, for the old carpenter was
running his hand through his hair, and with the most uncomfortable
expression upon his face.

“Ah, sir, you never came in better time,” said Enoch; “it’s plain
enough there’ll be no further use for these wheels this year, and they
make an awkward thing to be standing about in the way; and yet it’s a
job I don’t like to put my hand to, to undo a piece of work like that.
And it’s only a few months after all.”

“A few months till when?” asked the doctor.

“Why, sir, till they’re wanted again,” said Enoch, staring in the
wonder whether the doctor had asked a stupid question for once.

“Well,” said the doctor, “if you intend to keep a hospital here for
broken legs and crippled children, I advise you to take good care
of your wheels, but so far as my little patient is concerned, the
sooner you make kindling-wood of them the better. I intend to have him
walking into the city every day when the roads are settled again in the
spring.”

Enoch’s stare grew ten times broader, but it was of no use. The doctor
was gone, and if he had not been, Enoch would never have dared to ask
him which of them had lost his senses.

“Now, my little man,” he was just that moment saying to Creepy, “we’ve
come to a corner in our line of march. I’m not satisfied with what
we’ve been doing for that pain, but I wouldn’t fight it any harder
while these pleasant days lasted. There’s not going to be much getting
out, I’m afraid, for a while, and this is the time to take. Suppose I
should want to do something now and then that would make the pain seem
even worse for a little while, would you have courage to try it with
me?”

Up to Creepy’s mind rushed a story that Ben used always to be telling
whenever anything came along that seemed a little hard to bear, about
a certain slave, a great while ago and a great way off, Ben did not
remember when or where, but he believed it was in the East, wherever
that might be. And he did not remember what his name was, but that
did not matter; he knew that his master one day ordered him to be
beaten for a trifle, and when some one asked how he could bear it so
patiently, he answered, “Shall I receive so much good at the hand of
my master, and shall I not receive this little evil also?” And his
master, hearing of it, was so filled with admiration that he gave him
his liberty, and he became a famous philosopher.

But Creepy could not have told the doctor about it for his life, so he
only nodded, and said,

“I am not afraid.”

“Good,” said the doctor; “and you need not be. It is only that there
will be some days when things look rather forlorn, but every one of
them is bringing you nearer to spring, and don’t forget that we are
going fishing together when that time comes.”

So on went the weeks, and the days of pain came in among them here and
there; but there were so many other things to think of! The arithmetic
was no longer the only book, by any means; a geography and a copy-book
came along one after the other, and for times when he did not feel like
using those, there were stories enough to be read. But the doctor’s
visits were more than all the books, and the great eyelids did not
droop any more when he came, but Creepy had learned to look him square
in the face, whatever incredible thing he might be saying. But he would
not come _this_ morning; that was certain enough, he thought, as he sat
looking out of the window at the snow that came drifting through the
air until it seemed the clouds themselves were falling. Faster and
thicker every moment, and yet it had been coming all night; the trees
were groaning under their loads, the drifts were like great ocean-waves
up and down the road, and the grass-seeds the doctor had scattered over
the path in the fall were buried ten times deeper than ever before; for
though Enoch had had his shovel ready ever since breakfast, there it
stood by the old clock; there was no use turning out to make paths yet.

So Creepy stood at the window, just waiting to see what would happen
next, until his eyes were almost blinded; but there was certainly
something coming down the road! Only a little dark object at first, but
nearer and larger every moment. The black horse and his sleigh! And
almost before Creepy could rub his eyes and try to see more surely,
they were at the gate, Enoch’s path was broken for him, and the doctor
was at the door shaking the snow from his shoulders and taking off his
fur cap to knock down a pyramid from the crown, before Mrs. Ganderby
should find it melting over her floor.

“So you thought it was the sheeted ghost of myself, eh?” he said,
laughing, as Creepy opened the door; and Creepy laughed too, for
that was one of the things he had learned of late, though not from
any book. “You’re mistaken, sir; I never was heartier in my life.
There’s nothing like fighting a storm, to send one’s blood gayly to
his finger-ends. And how are you this morning, my little man? Brave
and well? Not quite equal to breasting this weather yet, eh?” and he
stooped with one of those quick looks into Creepy’s face that always
made his heart leap up into his throat.

And the weather, as if finding that it had done its worst and troubled
nobody, took a new tack; the clouds shut their gates and drew off, then
began to break away, and by the time the doctor was ready to go, were
rolling like great fleeces over a blue sky, and the sun was pouring
down, and the whole work of the storm lay in one measureless, glorious
glitter over the earth.

“It looks well this morning, doesn’t it, this world that we own?” said
the doctor, as he snatched a glance while he drew on his overcoat. “A
pretty proud bit of ownership for us all, I think, don’t you? Some of
its treasures may not be distributed just even, all around, but the
thing itself belongs to us. Eh, my man?”

What was he saying? Who? He said a great many things that seemed like
dreaming, and yet, he surely would not say them, if they did not seem
real to him!

As for a bit of this life belonging to Creepy, he didn’t call that a
dream any longer, since he had the doctor’s friendship; it seemed to
him he not only lived, but basked in the sunshine, since that joy had
come in. But God’s world, the real, great, wonderful world that lay out
beyond the turn in the road, out beyond the city even, stretching away
into beauty and treasure that he often tired himself with trying to
imagine; ah, that could never be! That was for the well and the strong
and the rich; for people who rode in their carriages, and would only
think him fit to run after them and open the carriage-door. For the
doctor too, of course, for every one ran after him, and _he_ would be
rich some day. But for himself--

The doctor stooped, shot a look into his eyes, and saw it all. In
another moment he had lifted Creepy gently in his arms, as he did that
first day under the old butternut, and was holding his face right
before his own.

“Look here, my little man,” he was saying, “I want to have this thing
understood once for all. I have been trying to put some new ideas into
this head of yours, these three months now, but I have not succeeded
as well as I wish, and I must see if I can make myself understood this
time. Who do you think made this world, and who do you think He made
it for, this King of ours who has taught us all to call him Father?
Don’t you know that whatever a king owns, the princes have a share in
as heirs; and more than that, there’s a dominion set apart for them now
and then, as a birthright? This is a great, glorious, beautiful world,
as everything our King makes is, and he made it for us, his children;
and the Prince Royal, our Elder Brother, who came and walked among us,
bought it again for us by his life and his death, after things began
to go wrong. I tell you, my boy, we’re of royal blood, you and I, just
as much as the greatest man that other men bow down to; we can’t be
_more_ than the children of the King, any of us. Only see to it that
you keep close to the Prince Royal, and follow his steps like a child
of the house, and you can claim your share with the tallest and the
strongest of the sons. And if you don’t get hold of a square acre that
men will call your own, in the course of your life, you can look at the
blue hills and the soft skies, and walk among the broad fields and the
flowers, with just as happy and as glad a throb in your heart as the
people who have paid thousands for them. Do you understand, little
man? Do you believe what I say?”

Once more Creepy couldn’t have spoken for his life; but though the
understanding and the believing that the doctor was asking for were
only stealing over the edge of his heart, like the first ray of
morning, yet they were making a glow there not so very different from
the rosy light he had seen the dawn spread over the snow-drift under
his window. It flushed up to his cheek with very much the same color,
and satisfied the doctor better than words could have done. With the
same quiet, gentle pressure that Creepy remembered so well, he placed
him in his chair again and was gone.

He was gone, and Creepy stood by the window once more; but was it
the same little almshouse cripple that had looked out from it in the
morning? It seemed to him that chains had fallen from him, as his heart
opened wider and wider to the doctor’s words. The warm glow grew to a
great throbbing joy, and he felt himself stretching up from the stunted
little soul he had been, and _almost_ laying his hand upon things more
joyful than he had ever dreamed that even a strong man could reach.

The Prince Royal his Elder Brother? That meant the Lord Christ, of
course. The doctor had spoken of him more than once, but Creepy had
not dared put the “all but me,” aside then. But why not? Keep close to
Him? Why shouldn’t he? Didn’t he come close to the doctor? and wasn’t
the Lord Jesus like him, only a thousand times stronger, and wiser and
gentler even than he; for wasn’t He a physician himself when He was
here, and wasn’t He always the same? Did He not call the weak and the
lame to Him, and did He not once take some of them in his arms, just as
the doctor had taken him to-day? Children of the King, and the Elder
Brother sharing his birthright with them? Oh, how different the world
looked this time out of the queer old window! He stood still and almost
held his breath, for it seemed to him as he looked up into the blue
sky, that he felt some one drawing near, and the same bewildering joy
that had come when he first felt the doctor’s arms around him, rose up
in his heart once more, only stronger and deeper than before. For was
not this some one who would never go away?

“Which I did say,” exclaimed Mrs. Ganderby to Sue, a few days
afterwards, as Creepy passed through the room with two or three of his
precious books in his hand, “which I did say wonders never would cease;
and here is the showing of it before our own eyes, for I mentioned
at the same time that sometimes doctors cure and sometimes they kill,
and sometimes they do neither one nor the other; and here it is, not
only that he’s getting the poor crooked thing where he’s going about so
light on his feet that the name Creepy will soon be no further use to
him; but the child that I thought would never learn to look anybody in
the face otherwise than to beg their pardon for being in the world at
all, is certainly getting a way of holding up his head and going about
as if he’d found out that his soul was his own, in spite of anything
that heaven or some people that were lower hadn’t seen fit to do for
his body, which there is no one could be more pleased than myself to
look on and see it, though if it isn’t altogether like a miracle of the
olden times, I don’t know what any one could put themselves about to
call it.”




CHAPTER VII.


The hum of Tom’s schoolroom had gone steadily on all this time, and
was busier than ever, if possible just now, looking forward to the few
days’ vacation just at hand, after which would come the short closing
term of the year, followed by examination-day, the culmination of all
excitement to the graduating class. Aleck was at the head of that,
and Tom tried not to think of the day when he would go; it seemed to
him school would be like a boxing-match without gloves after that; he
wondered if he ever _should_ get used to rubs and knocks so as to go on
comfortably through the world. As for a world where people did not like
giving them well enough to keep you in much danger, he never dreamed
of such a possibility. If he could only pluck up enough not to mind it
more than other boys! And yet he was sure, if the truth were told, they
didn’t like snubbing and being crowed over much better than he, but
they had a way of getting over it as he couldn’t.

However, if he stopped for more reflections, his arithmetic examples
would not be done, and he plunged in among them with such zeal, that
the last one was soon unravelled, and stopping to breathe a moment
before taking up his Latin, he caught sight of a little performance
going on between two of his neighbors, Carter, the catcher who had
retrieved fortunes for Tom the afternoon when luck was so against him
on the ball-ground, and Davis, who sat just behind him, and at Tom’s
elbow. They were in a class higher than Tom’s, and had some pretty
tough knots come in their way, as he very well knew, and they were at
work at them just now, but each very much in his own fashion. Carter
sat with one hand drawn through his hair, and pressing it tight with
all his fingers as if that would help pull through his difficulties,
and with knotted brow was working away like a Trojan, with no eyes or
ears for anything off the battle-field, while Davis behind him shuffled
over his pages for some rules or example that should throw a little
light, frowned, put down a few figures, rubbed them out again, and
pushed his slate impatiently aside.

At last, happening to peep over Carter’s shoulder, he saw the result of
his toil. Every example but the last done to a fraction, and lying in
neat figures in its own corner of the slate. A gleam of satisfaction
spread over his face, and drawing a little closer, he quietly and with
rapid strokes, transferred every one to his own slate. All but the
last. Carter was still at work upon that, but it wouldn’t come. Over
and over again the figures were erased, and the example begun again at
the beginning.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Davis under his breath, “time’s nearly up;” and
writing a note to one of the older boys who sat near, he quietly passed
it over to him, and in a few moments received it again, with the
example clear as daylight on the back, and requiring but a moment to
transfer it to his slate.

None too soon, however, for the bell rang as he put down the last
figure, and the class was called to the blackboard.

Carter was at the head, a place he had held for some time by
persistent, hard work, and accordingly explained the first example
with a precision that showed it lay clear-cut in his own mind. Others
followed rapidly, and the last fell to Davis.

“Have you the last, Davis?” asked the professor.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let us have it, then.”

He made his proposition and began, but there seemed to be some
trouble. He was not apt to get confused, but this certainly made
hodge-podge.

“Where is that example?” asked the professor.

“There, sir,” said Davis, handing up his slate.

He ran his eye rapidly over it, and returned it.

“That is all right,” he said, “and very well done, and so are all
the rest. You must learn to keep what you know a little more at your
command, Davis. How many of you have the example?”

How they had managed poor Carter could not imagine, but every hand
except his own went up.

“You haven’t it, Carter?”

“No, sir, I couldn’t get it.”

“I shall have to send you down, I’m sorry to say.”

The boys made a great deal more haste than was necessary, he thought,
to let him pass down and change places with Davis, adding one or two
very expressive winks to remind him that his hope for a star on the
record of that term was gone.

But the reminders came in much plainer language at recess.

“Here we go up, up, up, and here we go downy, downy!” cried a voice,
followed by a chorus.

“I can’t help it,” said Carter. “I couldn’t get it, and I don’t see how
you did.”

“Don’t you wish you knew?” sneered Davis.

“Isn’t he game, to flunk at a straw like that?” shouted one of the
boys, who had had the example comfortably done for him the night before
under the gaslight at home.

“Never mind, Carter; perhaps the professor will let you go back to
long-division next term.”

Carter looked so distressed that Tom, though furious at the whole
affair, began to take a little courage that he wasn’t so much more of
a fool about such things, after all, than some other fellows, when
Aleck’s voice was heard to come to the rescue.

“What’s that about long-division? If it’s anything that wants a long
head, and a sure one too, Carter is the right one to take it. I’ve
watched him all the term, and he’s had more of those tough examples
right than I ever did when I went over them, and works them out on his
own hook, too, without as much cribbing as some fellows want for a
single lesson. Come round this afternoon, can’t you, Carter? I’m going
to unrig my iceboat, and you can handle a tool much better than I can.”

Off scattered the mousers, the bell rang, and it was every man looking
out for his own again, till the exercises were ended and the tide
poured outward once more.

Aleck walked on very busy with his thoughts, but this time they had
nothing to do with lessons, nor even with examination-day, unless as
an event that was to knock away his stays and launch him forth to make
such headway as he might out of the quiet harbor of his schooldays.
He had no fear of breasting contrary winds, or of ploughing the rough
waves of life with a stout heart; the only trouble was to decide on the
port he wished to clear for; and this question, though it would have
been easy enough if he had had only himself to consult, seemed balanced
and counterbalanced whichever way he turned. But Carter never had a
suspicion that anything worried him as they worked away on the iceboat
that afternoon; he only thought Aleck was the handsomest fellow and the
best company in the world, and wondered how it was everything went so
smoothly where he was, the rough places always melting down, as the ice
and snow were vanishing outside under the shining of the March sun.

He couldn’t help telling him so at last, and Aleck laughed.

“Do they?” he said, “I didn’t know they did; but there’s something
in one’s way of looking at things, I suppose. If the sun were to
pull a cloud of disgust over his face every time he saw a hummock of
ice, they’d be likely to hold on a little longer. Looking straight
at an ugly thing, with a bright face of your own, works pretty well
generally, I think;” but when Carter was gone, and lessons pretty well
out of the way, Aleck had need to try his own maxim, for the question
that had been on his own mind in the morning came up again in full
force, and didn’t look any smoother or rounder for its brief absence.

It wasn’t a brown-stone front, like Hal Fenimore’s, in the library of
which Aleck sat, but a bit of a gothic cottage slipped in between two
large brick houses, with a clear sunset outlook from the rear, and a
bay-window trailing with vines in front, while a tiny wing, that had
begged room for itself on one side, formed a conservatory, from the
windows of which flowers of every hue had refreshed the eyes of the
passers-by through all the long, dreary winter months. If Creepy could
but once have rested his eyes upon them! His most gorgeous dreams of
what this world might be would have paled into gray twilight before
their unimagined beauty.

The brick houses on either side stood guard over the cottage, as if
they had taken it up for a pet, and inside its walls everything seemed
to be petted as well. In every nook and corner stood some delicate,
graceful thing, and every article of furniture, every picture on
the walls, and every ornament about the room, seemed chosen to be
loved. But the fairest ornament of all to Aleck’s eyes was the sister
from whom everything else had taken its coloring and its tone, and
he glanced involuntarily up from his book now and then to watch the
graceful movements of her white fingers as they followed the pattern of
her embroidery.

“I don’t believe there’s a fellow in the city that’s got anything to
compare with her,” he thought as his eye rested on the poise of the
beautiful head, the golden hair drawn back in waves and ripples from
her forehead, the soft eyes drooped over their work, and the half-smile
with which she followed her thoughts, whatever they might be. “I
_know_ there isn’t,” and down he plunged again into syntax, roots, and
terminations.

The brown eyes were raised at him just then, and let the embroidery
wait a moment, while their owner thought what a manly, handsome
fellow Aleck was, and how like his father, and how proud she should
be some day when she should see him taking his father’s place in his
profession, his father’s old friends welcoming him, and new ones of
his own rising up on every side. There were a good many sacrifices to
be made, and a good deal of waiting to be done, before that day should
come, but it would repay them all a thousand times.

Aleck lost all this, deep in the mazes of an irregular verb, but he was
out again by the time the eyes had gone back to their embroidery, and
snatched a minute for another look and thought of his own.

“Poor old Nell!” he said to himself, “she has set her heart on making
a lawyer of me, and I--” up and down went the balances again, and then
the lesson would have attention once more.

“Yes, yes, I see; it’s irregular, and it works under Rule 53. I’ll make
a note of that.” Another glance at Nelly, and down went the balance
again. “And if she does, what is it going to cost? Four years at
college, three at law studies, and as many more, if not twice as many,
before anybody’ll give me enough to do to keep soul and body together;
and by that time, where will she be? All the bloom of her life brushed
off while she’s waiting for me to come to something! Pshaw!” and in he
went again among the Ps and the Qs of the dictionary.

The lesson was done at last; he was master of every word, and closed
the book, but that was only to open the discussion of the future again.

“And I know very well how it’s to be done, too,” he went on. “There’s
just enough, as things are now, to keep up the house for her, if I were
to take care of myself; but when it comes to pulling me through those
seven or eight years, there’s only one way to do it. Think of selling
out everything here, and letting her follow me about in some ugly
boardinghouse or other, with only the chance of my being able to make
things up to her by-and-by!” and for once Aleck seemed to have found
something he could not melt down by looking at it.

“Finished, Aleck?”

“Yes, Nelly, and to-morrow finishes the week, and next week finishes
the term; then three days holiday, then ten weeks more.”

“And then?” said Nelly, and the half-smile brightened into something
radiant.

Aleck hesitated. He knew the picture she was drawing; how was he going
to rub it out, and drag her into all the bothers of a new decision? But
he couldn’t put it off much longer. Perhaps it had better come at once.

“Never mind about then,” he said gayly, “let’s talk about now a little
while. I never thought I should get ahead of you in anything, Nelly;
but I don’t believe you had your first offer before you were sixteen,
and I had mine day before yesterday.”

Nelly laughed.

“I hope you didn’t vow secresy,” she said.

“On the contrary, Uncle Ralph wished me particularly to consult you.”

“Uncle Ralph! What is it, Aleck? I don’t understand.”

“He wants me to go into the store with him, and offers to teach me all
he knows, and to give me a share in the business as soon as I am ready
for it.”

The smile vanished, and a shade of pity came over the beautiful face.

“Poor Uncle Ralph! He is alone in the world, and I suppose he longs to
have some of his own kith and kin with him every day. I am sorry he
asked you, it will be so hard to refuse him.”

“You don’t think I had better go, then?”

“Why, Aleck!”

That was all she said, but the tone and the look said a thousand times
more.

Aleck laughed in his turn.

“Do you say why? Well, I say, why not? I don’t believe I shall ever
make such a prodigy of a lawyer, sister mine, and it’s a horribly long
pull ahead before I show whether I do or not, and here is a chance to
take care of myself right away, instead of dragging on you a dozen
years; and I tell you, Nelly, it would take all the man out of a better
fellow than I am to do that.”

“Hush, Aleck! You know how much papa wished you to have a profession,
and his own above all others.”

“I know it, Nelly,” said Aleck, gently; “but perhaps,” and he glanced
questioningly in her face, “perhaps he sees some things differently
now. At any rate,” he added more lightly, “there are more professions
in these days than there used to be, and I’m sure a druggist’s, or at
least a chemist’s, is counted among the most respectable of them. And
as for Uncle Ralph, every one knows that he makes a profession of his
work. Why, what do you think came to him from England the other day?
A certificate of fellowship in the Royal Academy of Sciences! Imagine
me in that place! Wouldn’t that shine brighter than being called a
brother by the members of some county bar?”

“Aleck, why will you trouble me by talking so?”

“Trouble you, Nelly! I wouldn’t for the world; but Uncle Ralph wants
his answer day after to-morrow.”

“Well, it is ready for him; he need not have waited as long as that.
Tell him we both love him with all our hearts, for his own sake and
dear papa’s, and if he is lonely nothing would give us greater joy than
to have him come right here with us, but that it was papa’s wish you
should study.”

Aleck had left his seat and stood behind his sister’s chair, bending
caressingly over the knot of golden curls.

“Nelly,” he said, in low earnest tones, “papa did not know how little
there would be left; he did not know how it would have to be done. He
was a gentleman himself, every inch, and he wanted me to be one; but
which would he say was most worthy of the name, to take the little
that belongs to my beautiful sister, and use it up, on the chance of
returning it after years and years, or to go into an honorable place
where I can be of more use in a month, saving life and health, than
I could in a year of settling quarrels and splitting hairs? Nelly,
I _can’t_ do it! I _can’t_ take what belongs to you! If I ever get a
profession, I must wait till I can earn the money, and that will put
the happy day so far off that you will be a tired-out old lady, waiting
for it,” and he laughed again, for Aleck never looked on the gloomy
side many minutes at a time.

“And if money were as thick as blackberries,” he went on, “I’d rather
be a doctor, anyhow; and this comes next door to it, and I’m not sure
but a little above, for the doctors can’t move hand or foot without the
druggists. I tell you, Nelly, there’s more in it than you think, and I
might come out so scientific, and such a wise man, that you wouldn’t
venture to speak to me except in the most respectful manner. It isn’t
as it was in old times, when doctors took a spoonful of almost anything
out of their pockets for a patient! I wish you could just see them come
to Uncle Ralph with some difficult, delicate thing that they want done,
and that they can’t do themselves with all their wisdom, to save their
lives and their patients’ too! And I promise you it’s a place where
the greenbacks come in! And I should get my share of them, instead of
starving to death, waiting in my office like a spider in his web, to
catch my first unlucky fly!”

He waited for an answer, but Nelly did not speak. “Nelly,” he began
again, very softly, “I believe papa can see into Uncle Ralph’s heart
now, and if he can, I know what he would say. I only got a glimpse,
just one peep through his eyes, and it almost brought the tears into
mine. They plead pretty hard, Nelly!”

Nelly’s lips were pressed tightly together, and then parted suddenly.
“Day after to-morrow, did you say, Aleck? Don’t speak of it again till
then. I will tell you when that time comes.”

When it came, “Aleck, dear,” she said, with a smile, “do whatever you
like best, and whatever you think best. I shall be satisfied, whatever
it is.”

“All right,” said Aleck, with his gayest glow in his face; “I’ll go and
see Uncle Ralph.”

So it was settled: and Aleck never knew the pang it cost her to give
up the long-cherished plan for his future, or how thankfully she would
have made any sacrifice necessary to its accomplishment; and she had no
suspicion that he had sacrificed the darling dream of his life, rather
than feel himself a weight upon her, and say No to the lonely heart
that was craving what only he could give it.




CHAPTER VIII.


The doctor had fallen into more than one fit of musing since the one
that carried him three doors beyond his destination on the morning
Enoch’s wheels were being fitted, and the result was, that he had come
to a determination. But as he always kept his determinations very
quietly to himself until it was time to act upon them, no one was any
the wiser for it as yet. But at last, when the snow-banks had dwindled
away under the spring sun, until only a stray mound was left here or
there, and the earth began to peep out once more, brown and bare, the
doctor made up his mind that the time had come. He had just arrived
at that conclusion, when his office-door opened, and some one came
softly in. He knew the step, and could see the tall, gaunt form of old
Joan, the housekeeper, with her apron-strings tied in a hard knot, her
silver-rimmed spectacles, and her high-crowned cap, just as well as
if he had raised his eyes from his book. But Joan never liked to be
noticed when she came in; so he went on reading, with his feet in the
chair before him, as though no one were within a thousand miles.

Joan had only come to see about the fire, that was all; at least all
she meant should be understood; but the doctor knew very well, from
the endless brushing she was giving the hearth, that she had something
on her mind that would bring her round in front of his chair if he
only gave her time enough, and this suited him very well, as he had
something to say to her himself. Joan had followed the doctor from the
time he needed a nurse until he required a housekeeper, and she would
have been almost ready to quarrel even with him, if she had heard him
talk to Creepy about their owning shares in the world together, for
it was very much her opinion that the world was made for the doctor
exclusively; and if there were a few other people in it, that was
principally for the purpose of supplying him with a round of patients.

“Ah but he’s a braw laddie, and ony auld heart might weel be proud o’
raising sic a bairn,” she said to herself, as she glanced toward him
once or twice while she still brushed vigorously away at the hearth,
“though it’s true I never taught him the fashion he has o’ taking the
chair before him that’s almost higher than his head to tilt his feet
in, like a parrot fingering the trammels o’ his cage. It’s no so unco
handsome as the rest o’ him, but what can a young man do, shut up in a
room like this, with never a fair face to smile on him from ane years
end to anither; and if he were to bring a young wife hame wi’ him, wha
kens where old Joan might find hersel’ then? Na, na, it’s no change o’
that kind I’m asking, but _some_ things ought to gae differently, for
the pride o’ the house, and if he doesna see it for himsel’, why then
old Joan maun e’en speak her ain thocht, that is a’.”

But the speaking did not seem so easy after all, and Joan had
come fairly round before the doctor’s chair, as he had expected,
hearth-broom in hand, without getting her words into shape.

This wouldn’t do. He had something to settle with Joan himself, and he
must catch her in a propitious frame: at the same time he knew that if
he spoke first, everything would go wrong; so without looking up from
his book, he carelessly touched another that lay on the chair before
him, with his foot, and down it went upon the floor, and the flood
gates were opened.

“Hoot, mon!” exclaimed Joan, stooping to pick it up, and wiping it
tenderly with the corner of her apron, “hoot, mon, and canna ye be
content wi’ finding yoursel’ maister o’ a book like this, that not
one out o’ ten thousand o’ your neebors has learning eno’ to ken the
meaning o’ the very cover itsel’, that ye maun toss it under foot in
sic a fashion? It’s no that I begrudge gathering it up again, but I
dinna like aught belonging to yoursel’ to meet wi’ disrespect, and
that’s what I’m fearing ilka day will be coming to the house, a’though
no fault o’ mine. Not that I fash mysel’ sae muckle if folk maun e’en
mind ither folk’s affairs, but I’m an auld woman to be keeping up the
credit o’ an establishment like this.”

“You want some one to help you, Joan?”

“Help me!” exclaimed Joan indignantly, brushing her apron off sidewise
with both hands, as if to brush away the aspersion, “ye ken weel enough
Joan wants nae help, nor ever will, while her two hands can serve the
laddie she raised up to be the learned man he is, wi’ half the city
running after him to save their lives and show them the way out o’
trouble. Nae, nae, it’s no the work I’m fretting after, it’s only the
gude and proper face o’ things before the een o’ the world.”

The doctor looked up at her as if he could not understand a word.

“But you’ve always been called a remarkably good-looking woman, Joan,
and I don’t see that you look a day older than you did the first time I
saw you.”

“Whist, mon!” and Joan brushed the apron harder than ever, “wad ye
drive the patience clear frae a body? Dinna ye ken that ilka time
there’s a summons for your services, if it’s the richest mon in the
town sending for you to come and bring him back from the grave, there’s
naebody but an auld woman with her cap and spectacles to open the door
for him? The cap may be as white as snaw, but it’s no the livery that’s
becoming to a skelfu’ doctor’s house, and are whose name will soon be
kenned far an’ wide among the wisest o’ ’em.”

“But what would you have me do, Joan? A young doctor may have all the
wisdom of Solomon, but he’s got his way to make, and his porridge to
earn, for all that, and he must wait awhile before he can afford to
waste his fees on the vanities of life.”

“Waste! And wha kens better than yoursel’ that it would be neither
waste nor vanity to ha’ things fitting and becoming and commanding
the respect that’s due a high calling like your ain? And what great
physician’s house did I ever see among my ain at home that had na his
footman or two to open the door before ever a body had time to lay
hold upon the handle o’ the bell?”

“Suppose I get one then?” asked the doctor, looking very gravely in her
face.

“You’re no serious,” she said; “you’re no so easy to persuade, or to
come round to the sound o’ reason a’ in the moment a body just sets it
before your een.”

“No,” said the doctor, “I don’t suppose I am, but the truth is I’ve
been thinking of the same thing myself. But you know,” and the doctor
got up, laid down his book and shook himself, “you know, Joan, every
ladder must have its lower rounds, and you must not expect all the
glory of midday, when the sun is just getting above the horizon. Now
suppose my new man should be rather small and rather young, so young
in fact that it would be a good thing for him to go to school, out of
office hours. That wouldn’t make any difference, I suppose, in the
welcome you would give him, or the kindness you would show him when he
came in your way?”

Joan looked doubtful.

“It’s no a’ the gither what I wad choose,” she said, “but half a
bannock’s better than nae loaf at a’, and young folk grow, if you do
but gie ’em time. But he suld be a braw laddie, weel favored and wi’
good back and legs.”

“Weel favored enough,” said the doctor laughing, “but as for the back
and legs, they are good in their way; and getting better every day, but
I fear we can’t make any more of them than the best a hunchback ever
had.”

Joan’s face grew white. A hunchback opening the doctor’s door? She
would open it herself if she were a hundred years old, sooner than that
should happen!

“I’ll tell you about him,” went on the doctor, not seeming to notice
her; and beginning as far back as the night in Ben’s room, he gave Joan
a running sketch of the lame child as he had found him, of the dreary
life, the great wistful eyes, the pain that was never tired, and the
sensitive soul, shrinking away behind the “all but me” that had seemed
always to rise like stony walls before it.

“Now a strong man with any soul in him can’t see a child in a prison
like that, without wanting to knock the gates down for him, if he can,”
went on the doctor, “and that’s what I’ve been trying to do the last
six months, with the help of all hands out there; and I don’t think
we’ve made a bad piece of work of it as far as we’ve gone. I’ve got
the little fellow on his feet again, and he’s had more than one walk
already, since the snow is passing off, and he’s beginning to believe
all I’ve told him, or thinks he does, but it’s more like a story than
anything else, so far, and I want to make it a reality. I want to get
him away from that place out there, and get him in here where things
are civilized, and put him, as soon as he gets a little more strength,
into the best school there is, and let him measure himself with other
boys of his age, and see what he can make of himself and the world he’s
come into. And I don’t see any way to do this, but to indulge myself
in an office-boy for certain hours of the day. The child must have a
shelter, and some one to look to; and he’ll want more than I can be
to him too. A friend something like yourself for instance, Joan;” and
the doctor darted one of those quick looks and wonderful smiles at the
housekeeper, that always made Creepy’s heart leap to his throat. Joan’s
face ceased to be white long before the doctor had finished, and there
was something the matter with her spectacles; she couldn’t see well
through them, and there was a struggle going on behind them that was
plain enough. It was a drawn battle for a few moments more, and Joan
flourished the hearth-broom again, as if determined to knock over one
side or the other with it, but at last she spoke.

“Puir bairnie,” she said, “it’s no mysel’ that wad we in the way o’ a
work like what you hae been doin’, and if I have na the skill to help
you in what you hae to do wi’ the puir crooked back, I can e’en comfort
the lane heart a bit now and then, and help it take courage for the
fight with the world, that is na sae bad after a’ as some folk would
ca’ it, nor bad enough to think the worse o’ a young doctor that’s
willing to shelter one o’ the Lord’s sorrowful bairns, when he might
hae the finest pair o’ hands in the country to open the door for those
that are looking for him.”

“Good for you, Joan,” said the doctor, smiling again, “and you needn’t
fear any one is going to look as far as the limbs after they once get
sight of the pair of eyes that shine out above them.”

“That’s all right,” he added to himself a moment later, as he shook the
reins over the black horse’s head. “Creepy has Joan for his friend for
ever; now for Mrs. Ganderby.”




CHAPTER IX.


Joan left the doctor’s office and retired to her own part of the house
with mingled thoughts and sentiments. She had persuaded the doctor to
grant her cherished wish: there was to be some one beside an old woman
to open the door for his calls, and some one, if not in livery, at
least in a tailor’s suit. But a crooked back! How was that ever going
to look?

“Weel, weel, it were a deed o’ charity at the least, and like the
doctor’s ain sel’ to see that sic a thing could be done at the same
time he waur gratifying old Joan’s pride, and doing the worthy and
respectable thing for himsel’. And who kenned but it might gie a bit o’
look o’ distinction to the house, after a’? And who could leave a bairn
like that to greet his days awa’ alane and unpitied in what the doctor
who kenned the truth o’ it a’ was pleased to call a prison. Not auld
Joan. Nane suld ever say that.”

Her reflections were hardly ended, before the black horse had sped away
over the distance from the office to the almshouse, and the doctor was
at the door again. That had long ago ceased to surprise any one; the
wonder to-day was that, instead of making his way at once to Creepy’s
corner, he remained at least ten minutes closeted with Mrs. Ganderby,
and when at last the door opened, he held it ajar long enough for Sue,
just ready to dart away from the old clock, to hear her say,

“Well, well, sir, if you have such a thought in your heart, it’s not
for me to do anything but rejoice that the Lord has shown such pity
upon him, which at the same time, there’s no one in the house but will
be sorry to miss the poor crooked thing, nor can do anything but wonder
how you can find any way to manage things for a poor little ill-favored
creature like him, much less to find him of any use to yourself; though
after the change you’ve succeeded in making already, which it often
seems to me you have done it more as the apostles used to cause the
lame to walk than as a real living man of our day could be expected, no
one can feel inclined to doubt or to wonder at anything you undertake.”

In another moment Sue had fled away just in time, and was calling upon
Enoch and all the rest to help her imagine what this mysterious speech
could mean, and amid all this excitement the doctor was at Creepy’s
side again, and darting one of the old quick inquiring looks into his
face. But it was a joyous look too, and Creepy responded with a smile;
he had learned to do that long ago, but ever since the morning the
doctor had talked to him about the Brotherhood, the blood had seemed to
flow with a fuller throb through his veins, and he could raise his head
and meet the look of any one with what it seemed to him must be the
same feeling that was making the earth blossom out into spring, green
grass and flowers once more.

“So, so, my little man! All bright and well this morning, and troubles
vanishing away like the last rags and tatters of winter that have been
hiding in the corners of the field? Well, that is as it should be; and
now, if you haven’t been taking a walk with Enoch and tiring yourself
out already, suppose you should get into that chaise of mine, and see
how life seems to me, driving about in it all day. I can’t let you
learn what exercise is all at once, and I want to get you into drill
for that fishing excursion of ours; it will be time for it now before
we can say Jack Robinson.”

Six months ago this would have made Creepy’s heart stand still, and
then beat with such a great, trembling pulse that he could hardly have
breathed, but now he only got up from his chair with a glow in his
cheeks and a great shining in his eyes, and said he was ready.

“Good! And suppose, if you shouldn’t be tired of everything before we
get there, suppose we should stop at my house a while, and see if you
can find anything to amuse yourself with? And if you should, and if I
should be busy, as I am very likely to be, suppose we should not come
back at all to-day; or if we didn’t feel in the mood of it, not even
to-morrow, and give you a chance to see if you like life anywhere else
as well as here?”

The black horse seemed to understand that something to deal tenderly
with was being lifted into the chaise. He stopped pawing the ground as
he always did when he heard the doctor’s step, and instead of dashing
off at the first touch of a loot upon the chaise floor, he stood as
if such a thing as moving had never been heard of, and only looked
over his shoulder with wondering eyes as the doctor placed Creepy
exactly where he wanted him among the cushions, and tucked the lap-robe
carefully round on that side. But it was only a moment; they were all
right then and off, but there was a touch on the rein that told him
very plainly they were not going as fast as usual, and that every
roughness in the road was to be left one side, or, if that couldn’t be,
smoothed over by the best motion possible.

“Driving isn’t quite what it might be, yet,” said the doctor; “but
things are getting better every day, and by the end of another week we
may see the dust flying, after all. Do you see that bit of green grass
showing itself over there? We had better feast our eyes while we can,
for we shall be coming to city pavements before we know it.”

But he seemed to be in no hurry to come to them, or indeed to come to
anything or any place in particular. They took the first turn in the
road, it is true, the same that Creepy used to wonder at in days gone
by, and which Enoch had showed him, in the queer chair, so many times
since; but instead of keeping on after that towards the city, they
swept off into another, and then leisurely on till they came to what
seemed hardly more than a lane, overhung by sweeping branches of great
old trees.

“There,” said the doctor, “that is the way we shall take when we bring
our fishing rods along with us. Do you see those willows down there,
yellow as gold, and buds swelling on every twig. When they have fairly
burst forth, and made green leaves of themselves, that will be the
time for us to come. But this morning I don’t know that we can do
better than drive a little farther.”

Creepy did not answer a word, but that was of no consequence with the
doctor; he always understood him just as well when he could not speak.
Was this the world that he had dreamed of so long? Was this what life
had always been to other people, “all but him,” this thrill that was
filling every vein, this joy at his heart, this free fresh air, this
sunlight, this feeling that there was something more, still lying
beyond every turn? He leaned back among the cushions and drew long
deep breaths, as if in that way he could drink more deeply, and make
something more his own.

The doctor chatted on, they took one turn after another, until at last
there were no more to take, and they were coming fairly into the city.
And now the doctor watched his patient more carefully; he saw that the
great blue veins were swelling up in his forehead as he had not seen
them now for a long time. The palaces and castles, as they seemed to
Creepy’s eyes, the countless, wonderful throngs of people, the hurry
and bustle and bewildering noise, were going to be too much for him;
they must take the shortest cut home.

That brought them past the little cottage between its two brick
guardians, and Creepy caught sight of the conservatory window. In an
instant he had started up with a sudden cry, his cheeks turned pale and
then crimson, and he leaned past the side of the chaise until, for a
second, the doctor thought he had lost him.

“Wait a bit, my man,” he said, laughing, as he caught Creepy’s arm;
“they’re worth looking at, that is true enough; but I can’t quite
consent that you should break your neck for the sake of a peep at them.
Sit up now, like a sensible fellow, till I can roll up the curtain and
then we will walk past once or twice and see what we can make of it
all.”

The curtain was rolled up, and the black horse brought to a walk and
then turned to pass the window again. This time Creepy’s heart _did_
stand still! Geraniums, azaleas, roses, heliotropes, and jessamines;
and almost loveliest of all, some one standing behind the flowers, her
face as fair as any of them, and her golden hair bound back from her
forehead like rippling sunlight.

She had caught sight of Creepy too, Nellie Halliday, and though she
could not read the whole story on the quivering face and great shining
eyes, her quick glance told her enough, and when the horse had been
turned again and was passing once more for Creepy’s last look, she had
broken off a handful of the rarest flowers, thrown up one of the sashes
a little way, and stood holding them toward him with a smile.

Creepy turned one entreating look toward the doctor, and then felt the
reins put into his hand; the doctor had sprung down and was taking them
from her.

“Excuse me,” she was saying, “I thought the little fellow was an
invalid, and that perhaps they might be a pleasure to him, but I’m
afraid I am venturing too much,” and a blush like one of her own roses
spread over her face as the doctor took them from her hand.

“Quite the contrary,” said the doctor; “my little patient is indebted
to you for his first taste of one of God’s rarest gifts;” and with his
hat still in his hand he was in the chaise again, and the flowers in
Creepy’s grasp.

“Well, and what do you think of them?” he asked gently, after a few
moments as Creepy still held them reverently, scarcely pressing his
white fingers upon their stems, and turning them from side to side
before his enraptured eyes.

He turned and looked in the doctor’s face. “I think,” he said, “the
King must have made them for his princess.”

“Good!” said the doctor, “that’s it exactly--or for a princess now and
then. At least I believe that was one who stood holding these out to
you.”

But there was no time to talk about the flowers, they had stopped
before the doctor’s door. Could Creepy bear anything more?

With a word to the black horse, the doctor had lifted him gently from
the chaise, and they were going up the steps together. And this was
where the doctor lived! This had been one of the dreams over which
Creepy’s thoughts had run a thousand times, trying to imagine where
it could be, and what it could be like. And here it was, an everyday
sort of place enough to city eyes, too closely between others for any
thought of conservatory windows, a brown-stone front, and an iron
railing up the steps; but grandeur itself to Creepy’s eyes. And now
they were in the office. Books, books on every hand, and marvellous,
mysterious glittering things that he could not divine the use of; an
arm-chair or two, a lounge, and an ivy trailing over the window. But
the doctor gave him very little time to go from one to the other.

“Now, my man, or my prince,” he said, with one of his old smiles,
“I want you to remember that even you might possibly, under some
circumstances, get tired, and I’m afraid your physician may not be
pleased if it goes too far; you have done a good deal for one step
out into life, and I have some writing that hasn’t been done. Suppose
I just make you all right on that lounge a while, and you keep quiet
there half an hour or so, while I do a little work by myself. There--I
think that’s about right; now if you should by any accident fall asleep
a few moments, there would be no harm done.”

The doctor settled himself to his writing, and appeared to have
forgotten there was such a thing in existence as the throbbing little
life that lay upon his sofa; but he did not forget it, not for an
instant, and stole a look once in a while to see how things were going.
He was afraid there had been a little too much; he had planned all he
thought would do very well before the matter of the flowers came up.
But he was soon relieved by seeing the great eyelids droop, then rest
quietly, and in a few moments more he was sure his patient was asleep.

“That’s good,” he said as he took one more look to make sure he was not
mistaken; “only a child could do that, and I’m glad to see he has even
so much of it in him. Perhaps he’ll grow young enough to make up for
lost time, after all.”

When Creepy opened his eyes, everything was as he had left it; the
doctor still sat at his table, not an article in the room had moved
from its place, not a wonder had lessened, not a vision had vanished
away. He wasn’t even sure he had been asleep, and the doctor said
nothing about it as he laid down his pen and turned to look at him.

“There, that’s done,” he said, “and now, I suppose, I ought to go out.
Do you feel rested enough to amuse yourself for a while? I think I’ll
call old Joan to help you for this time. You must make friends with
Joan, for you wouldn’t have had much of a doctor if it hadn’t been for
her. I was smaller than you, and not a bit stronger, when she undertook
to make something of me.”

He rang the bell, and the gaunt form, cap, and spectacles appeared.

“Joan, this is the little man I was speaking to you of; he is going to
stay with me to-day, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps longer, if we can make
him like it. Can’t you find something to entertain him with while I
make a few calls?”

Joan’s face was a study as she looked at the tiny, crooked form, the
pale face, and the great dark eyes that still lay on the corner of
the lounge. First, amazement, then perplexity and the tender pity and
readiness to help that are somewhere in every woman’s heart, no matter
how sharp the outlines of her shoulders; and in none more warmly than
in the old Scotch nurse’s, doubtful as she had looked for a moment.

“Indeed, mon,” she said, “it’s nae sae muckle auld Joan remembers o’
the tricks that used to amuse yoursel’ in days gone by; not that the
time’s sae very lang past, either, but it’s brought its changes wi’ it,
and I’ve ta’en my share o’ them, I suppose. But I’ll do what’s in my
power for ony visitor o’ yours gladly enough, and more than a’ for a
tired little heart sic as this seems to be.”

“Well, well,” said the doctor, “I’ll venture it. Tell him some of the
marvellous stories I used to hear, or take him in your own part of the
house, if he likes, and let him see how we manage to live here all by
ourselves. Good-by, my little man; I’ll see you again before you’re
half done with Joan,” and he was gone.

It seemed a long time, and yet a short one, before the black horse’s
hoofs were heard clattering up to the pavement again. It took all
Creepy’s quick wits to follow Joan in her strange talk and make head
or tail of what she was saying, and she found something quite as new to
herself in the gentle, patient soul, the twisted form, and the “unco
sorrowfu’” look that met her out of the brown eyes.

But they both kept their difficulties to themselves, and got bravely
along with them; and, best of all to Creepy, Joan was never tired of
talking of the doctor.

“It’ll take a lang day and a lang search,” she said, “to find anither
man of nae mair years than his that can measure off against his little
finger in all that suld mak the warld the better or the happier for his
living in it. There’s mair wisdom in his head than in a hundred that
think themselves equal wi’ him; an’ sic a braw an’ winsome laddie as he
waur, an’ sae strang an’ gladsome, never dree or wearied, an’ I never
kenned him afraid to raise his head amang the proudest, nor feel that
he couldna fash himsel’ to lift up the weakest and the humblest o’ them
a’. Ye canna see it a’ yet, but maybe ye hae kenned him lang enough to
get a glimmer o’ the truth. Dinne ye think sae, bairnie?”

“I think,” said Creepy, slowly rising up from where he lay, and fixing
the great brown eyes on Joan’s face, “I think the weak and the sick
must come to him as they came to the Lord Christ when he was here.
Don’t you think He has taught him to be like Himself?”

From that moment Joan would have fought with wild beasts, if it had
been necessary, to protect and cherish her new charge.




CHAPTER X.


A week later Creepy was as quietly domesticated in the doctor’s house
as if he had been left among the inside finishings by the builder;
and instead of the shrinking from everybody and everything that would
once have made it impossible to him, the warm glow in his veins, that
he had thought must be like spring to the earth, kept on, as warm and
as life-giving as ever; his own old “All but me” seemed to have fled
away, and the doctor’s “Why not you?” to have made some little hold for
itself at last.

And there was still one more change that covered up, if it did not
eclipse, all others: a new suit from the tailor’s, which, though not
“worried out” by Mrs. Ganderby’s “wits and patience,” smoothed away
so much from the queer figure, and showed to so much advantage the
delicacy of face and form there really was, that Joan was actually
proud to have them appear at the front door.

But the books were the great thing, after all. A whole new set, and the
doctor to hear his lessons, though the doctor did not think as much of
that as Creepy did.

“Well enough for a while,” he said to himself, “till I can bring him
up to the mark, but I don’t want him moping at home with an old fellow
like me; I want to get him into that schoolhouse over yonder, and let
him get his blood stirred among boys like himself.”

“Like himself!” he repeated, with a smile; “well, no, not exactly that,
that’s a fact. They’ve got better backs than he has, but he’s got a
head that will beat any half dozen of them together, if they don’t
look sharp. If I saw other people putting a boy of his health over the
ground he’s making, in the same time, I should say they were a set of
fools, but it seems nothing more than play to him. I believe I could
get him admitted there in another six weeks, and he’ll make a steady
run through, if I can only keep up his health, and then--”

The doctor glanced with a look quite like fatherly pride at Creepy,
where he sat with his hair pushed back from his forehead, his slender
fingers buried in the pages of his book, and the brown eyes devouring
what lay before them.

“And then,” he went on, “I don’t know about trusting him at college.
I’m not sure he’ll have strength for that; but we’ll make a doctor of
him yet, and one that knows what he’s about too, if I’m not very much
mistaken.”

And so the time slipped away; long, velvety grass made one forget
the snow had ever lain in the fields, the willow-buds had burst and
were swinging like long, gray plumes over the brook, and Creepy and
the doctor had been trouting along its shore. That was a day that
bewildered him as much as the sight of Nelly Halliday’s flowers, but
the doctor was not afraid this time; the cool, fresh air and the quiet
rests under the old trees with the picnic-baskets were a balance on the
other side, and Creepy’s quiet laughs breaking out now and then told
that everything was going right.

“So,” said the doctor that evening, as Creepy lay curled up in the
sofa-corner for a rest, “do you remember the two things we talked about
under the old butternut-tree? Fishing and going to school, weren’t
they? Well, now we’ve tried one of them and like it pretty well, hadn’t
we better be getting ready for the other?”

Creepy only laughed and drew himself up with a look that rewarded
the doctor for all the pains he had taken. It was the “Why not you?”
smiling quietly out of his eyes, for after he had really gone fishing
with the doctor, what else might not come to pass?

But not quite yet. Creepy must get used to as much of the new wine of
life as he was tasting now before the doctor could venture on filling
any nearer to the brim; and moreover he was afraid the “Why not you?”
was still a pretty feeble little thing. If anything should happen to
crush it down and break it off to the roots, he did not know as he
should ever be able to raise it again. He was very much afraid the “All
but me” would start up once more and choke it out for ever.

So Creepy went on with his lessons, and understood Joan better every
day, and drove about behind the black horse until the palaces and
castles began to look more like houses for real men and women. But best
of all was a walk now and then quite by himself past Nelly Halliday’s
window, and more than once he had come home with just such a handful of
treasures as had set him beside himself the first day he came into the
city.

But if Creepy was getting used to the affair of the flowers, and began
to take it quietly, so that it didn’t set him in a toss any more, the
doctor didn’t seem to be.

“Pshaw!” he said to himself as he saw them, “that’s the privilege a
child has without asking for it! I’d give a month of my life to see a
face like that again, and I don’t dare even to steal a look through
the side of my chaise as I drive by, while he can walk up to the very
window-pane and wait till it opens to him.”

But he only asked quietly, “Who gave them to you, my little man?”

“The princess,” said Creepy, seriously enough.

The doctor laughed, and said, “Good,” again, but the second time Creepy
had a different answer.

“The princess cut them for me, but some one else who was with her
jumped through the window and brought them to me. He was handsome,
too,” and then the doctor had two to envy, instead of one.

He would not have disturbed himself much about it, though, if he had
seen that it was only Aleck, and had heard him at that very moment
telling Nelly, with great fun in his eyes, that it was all very fine
for him to play humble servant and dispense her favors, until some
older pair of beseeching eyes than their new visitor’s should stand
pleading before the door.

But Nelly’s sweet thoughts were wandering off after Creepy, and she
would have envied the doctor to his heart’s content had she known that
he had the happiness of doing every day and all day long what had only
fallen in her way two or three times, and might never come again.

“I wish we knew where the little fellow lives, Aleck, and whom he
belongs to. Somebody is kind to him, I know; but it seems strange they
don’t provide him with a few flowers of his own, he seems so ravenous
for them. I’m almost glad they don’t, though, it is so delightful to
have him coming here now and then.”

The doctor thought it strange, too, and was just then berating himself
for a stupid fellow, that it had never occurred to him how they
would have brightened up the almshouse the last winter. However, he
couldn’t be altogether sorry, and if things had come round so that
Miss Halliday’s flowers were straying into the office, and bringing
in a light and a fragrance such as the dull, old room had never known
before, it was too pleasant to quarrel with altogether.

“An’ what’s the doctor been making up his mind to, now, I wonder?”
said old Joan to herself as she lingered about with her dusting one
morning. “Something, I ken well eneugh by the glint in his een and the
close-pulled line about his lips. Something is sure to happen when his
face sets itsel’ that fashion;” and she was right.

“Joan,” he said, “the boy is ready to go to school. It is high time;
it’s altogether too dull music shut up here with only an old woman
and a young doctor to speak to from one day to another. The last term
of the year is half out, it is true, but he had better go the half
and make a few acquaintances to amuse himself with through the long
vacation, and then he’ll be ready to start fair and square when the
next year begins.”

“Hoot, mon,” she said, “canna ye see that the wee bairnie is doing weel
enough whaur he bides, that ye maun tak him and turn him loose amang a
parcel o’ boys that’s mair like wild animals than anything fit to be
trusted wi’ a tender flower ye hae but just now taught to haud up its
head a bit at the best? Only let ane o’ them trample down your wark wi’
a rough-shod foot, an’ whaur would it be then?”

“That would be an ugly piece of work,” said the doctor; “but boys are
not so bad as you think, and a wild animal would be a mild term for one
that wouldn’t lend a helping hand when a little fellow like Creepy came
in his way. And that’s the very thing I want; there are some things you
and I can’t do for him, let our will be ever so good.”

“Weel, weel,” said Joan, “its no becoming for me to be disputing wi’ a
doctor about his patient; but if any harm comes, it may need doctor and
nurse baith to bring things right again.”

“We wont look for anything of that kind,” said the doctor; “and as for
‘bringing things right,’ I don’t see that much help is needed from
anybody just now. Did you ever think the boy would stand as straight,
or walk as fast, as you see him to-day? It’s about time to say Good-by
to that name of his, I think, though I don’t know exactly where to look
for another.”

“And what need hae ye o’ anither, if anither means aught different frae
your ain?” said Joan. “Havena ye as fair a name as the world turns its
ear to, and dinna ye intend keeping the bairn near eneugh yoursel’ to
let him hae a share in it? What harm wad come to ony o’ us if folk
should learn to ca’ him Thorndyke?”

“None in the world,” said the doctor, laughing, “and if you and he are
agreed, we’ll call it settled.”




CHAPTER XI.


The hurrying, scurrying, scrambling stream of boys was once more
leaping and pushing, running and walking up the schoolhouse-stairs,
where Tom had waited so long in vain hope that Hal would “move on.”
There were not so very many of them, not more than thirty-five or forty
at the most; but there was something in the way they were getting up
stairs that would have made any one who wasn’t used to it sure there
were legs and boots enough for fifty or a hundred. They subsided
considerably at the schoolroom-door, though not altogether, as the
bell had not yet rung, but one by one, as they passed in, they seemed
struck into dumb astonishment at what they saw. It was only Creepy
standing by his desk while the professor looked over his books, and
talked pleasantly of the place he had better take in the classes. But
the queer, twisted little form, the great head with its high, white
forehead and brilliant eyes, and the color coming and going like a
living thing in the pale cheeks, seemed to put a spell on the boys, and
held their eyes as if they had seen a hobgoblin, until the professor
turned his own upon them with such a flash and frown as sent them off
to their seats and their own affairs in a twinkling. But Creepy hardly
heard what the professor was saying; the rush had taken his breath
away, and though he had not dared look up as it came, he felt every
step that passed near him, and his heart was throbbing again as it had
not since the day when he crept out to his little room after the first
visit from the doctor.

And it would not be quiet after the bell had rung, and every one was
so busy that he had ventured as many glances as he liked about the
room. Was this school? Were these the boys he was to know and call his
schoolmates and companions? But so many! Such a great crowd! He had not
thought so many boys ever got together in one school; he had hardly
thought there were as many in the city! How should he ever come to know
one from the other? how would he ever dare to speak to any of them?
Oh, why did he come away from the doctor and Joan? He felt happy, and
remembered that he was one of the princes when he was with them; and
the professor, too, he did not mind; the doctor and he had had such a
pleasant talk when the doctor came to introduce him, and he had said so
many kind things already. No, he should never be afraid of him, but
there were too many of these boys, and still more in the next room.

His head felt dizzy and he laid it down upon his desk, and listened to
the hum a while with his eyes shut. How was he ever going to study in
the midst of it?

But somehow, after the first half hour, it did not seem quite so much,
and by the time the bell struck ten o’clock, Creepy was going on with
his lessons with a steadier pulse and almost a feeling of pleasure
warming up in his heart again. What if he were to like it, after all!
What if some of the boys were even to like him, and they should come
to be friends, as the doctor wished! At any rate, he should see their
games at recess! The doctor had told him about them, and given him a
great many directions not to run too much until he got a little used to
it; he couldn’t understand very well yet, but it would all come right
if he once saw.

Hum, hum, went the schoolroom, and on went the routine of lessons. If
any of the other boys had been told the new-comer thought it exciting,
they would have called it about the strangest thing they ever heard
of. Carter and Davis were busy at that very moment in the next room
over an illustrated almanac they had been getting up, to show how many
days and hours still remained before it would all be over, and the long
vacation come on. How many hours said almanac had taken from their
studies, and how much care had been necessary to conceal it from proper
authorities, were questions they did not vex their souls about; it was
trouble enough to Davis to furnish the plan, the leading ideas, and the
plain work, while Carter designed the illustrations, and a pretty good
thing they had made of it altogether, they thought.

It lay open now on Carters desk, just inside his astronomy, and he made
a sign to Davis to look at the last and crowning design just completed.

Davis signalled “Tip-top” with telegraphic taps of his pencil upon his
slate, and then the astronomy-class was called.

The boys filed past the open door that led from the small room into the
one where Creepy sat, with a quiet, regular step until Aleck reached
it, and his eyes wandering through, caught sight of the face that had
looked in at the conservatory-window with such rapture two or three
times, but had been missing now so long that he and Nelly had feared
they should never meet it again. Without knowing he did it, he came
to such a sudden halt that Carter, who was behind him, was “brought up
all standing,” his astronomy knocked from his hand, and the almanac
went skimming away until at last it fluttered down directly before the
professor’s feet.

“Thank you,” said the professor, with a nod and a bow to Carter; “yes,
I will look at it with pleasure,” and picking it up he turned leaf
after leaf, and studied one after another of the chefs-d’œuvres.

“Ah,” he said, after what seemed to the two boys an eternity of
suspense, “I really was not aware I had such an artist in the school.
Modesty is a virtue, and shrinks from having its work exhibited, but
such masterpieces as these I must beg to hold up for one moment to the
admiration of the class,” and mounting the platform he took his seat at
the desk, and holding up the almanac to the view of the whole room, he
turned the pages and exhibited one after another of the grand designs
for the five weeks remaining, in every one of which a caricature of
himself formed a prominent figure.

A suppressed murmur arose as the pictures met the devouring eyes of the
boys, beginning with a bonfire of compositions at which the professor
was trying to warm his icy heart, and ending with the Fourth of July
in the shape of a spread eagle with wings of stars and stripes, the
school bell in one talon and the blackboard brush in the other, flying
away with the professor bodily, while a pile of books like a small
haystack was heaped upon its back, geographies, Virgils, philosophies
and grammars, helter-skelter, and hanging together no one could tell
how.

Carter looked as if he would sink, or at least as if he would give all
he expected to die possessed of, if a knot-hole would open and let him
escape, but Davis made a tremendous effort and kept so unmoved a face
that no one suspected him of having anything to do with the affair.

“Allow me to congratulate you,” said the professor, as he returned
the almanac, “not only is such talent worthy of commendation, but the
faithful use of time, and the expenditure of precious moments upon
work of genuine importance, will if formed into a habit, become of
life-long value, and I must congratulate myself that accident has
brought the indication of such promise to my notice;” and with another
bow he placed the fated subject of discussion in Carter’s hands, which
would far sooner have reached themselves out for a flogging than to
acknowledge such an ownership.

The lesson went on, but a more vivid picture filled Aleck’s mind
than any Carter’s pencil could produce. That face at the desk in the
other room! Their eyes had met, and Creepy had recognized him at the
same instant and with a great bound of joy, and was over his book now
without seeing a word, with no room for anything but the thought that
he was here; and Aleck himself had to take good care that he did not
stumble in his recitation, he was so busy thinking what Nelly would
say when he told her whom he had found, and how she would delight to
surprise him with a handful of flowers on his desk now and then.

But the recitation was over at last and with it the first division of
the morning session; the bell rang for recess and the stream poured out
once more, though soberly as a funeral procession compared with the way
it had passed in a few hours before.

This was what Creepy had been longing for, and yet when the moment
fairly came, it seemed to him he could not stir. If he could only see
that face that had looked in at the door! But he saw only one strange
one after another, and each glancing curiously at him as it passed.

But the professor caught sight of him just then and divined the
difficulty.

“Don’t you feel like going out? I think I would try if I were you,” he
said with the same smile that had been so reassuring in the morning.
“Here, Haggarty,” he added to Tom, who had hung behind as usual, to
keep clear of something he knew Hal had on his tongue’s end, “take this
boy along with you, can’t you, and see that he makes a good time out of
it somehow. It don’t do to sit here too long without a breath of air.”

They went down stairs together, and though Creepy thought Tom seemed
to be casting sidelong glances at him, it never occurred to him that
he saw anything peculiar beyond his being a stranger, and the shouts
coming up from the playground had such a tempting sound, that he
hurried over the stairs in a way that astonished Tom beyond measure.

“This is the way,” said Tom, pushing open the door, and leading Creepy
out, with a feeling that he would do anything in the world if he only
knew what was the right thing, but that he really didn’t, he took
refuge in a corner close at hand, and a little off the common track of
the players.

“Hurrah for Carter and his almanac!” was the shout just now coming up,
“Carter’s almanac, the newest thing out!”

“I say, old fellow, is it time to look out for storms?” cried Hal
Fenimore’s voice.

“And I say, what quarter of the moon is best for sowing winter wheat?”
said another.

“You don’t give away those almanacs, do you?” cried a third; “if you do
I want the first chance.”

“Come, come,” said Aleck, who had been distressed enough at being the
unlucky cause of all the trouble, “what’s the use of harping for ever
on one string. Let’s have a game of ball, or time will be up before we
know it.”

The mousers scattered again, and drew off for their game, while another
set were establishing bounds for a run of tag. All this had been Greek
to Creepy; he hadn’t understood a word, but it would all come to him in
time, he supposed, if he could ever get through this business of being
acquainted. Aleck had watched for him when the stream first poured out,
but had given him up before now, and moved off, and poor little Tom,
feeling more and more awkward every moment, made a great effort at last
to say, “They’re going to have a game; don’t you want to come?”

Creepy hesitated a moment, trying to find voice.

“What a plague! He isn’t going to answer at all,” thought Tom, and
in a fit of desperation, dreading above all lest Hal should get a
sight of the situation, plunged his hands into his pockets, and walked
away to join the players. A sudden thought sent Aleck back into the
school-room, and Creepy, who had caught one glimpse of him, felt his
last hope depart.

“However nobody seems to be taking any notice,” he thought, “and I can
look on, at any rate, I suppose, of course.”

So this was a real game of ball, that he had so longed to see ever
since the doctor first described it to him! He couldn’t understand it
yet, any better than the talk about the almanac, but the shouts and the
quick runs and the eager contest took hold of him in a moment, and he
forgot himself and his embarrassment together.

“Oh what sport that must be,” he thought, as the game went on; “and how
strong they are, and how swift, and what throws they make! I wonder if
I shall ever learn? Of course I shall, the doctor said I should;” and
his cheek warmed again, not as it had when the boys rushed into the
school-room, but with as spirited a glow as the swiftest runner felt in
his.

“Hurrah!” shouted the chorus, at an extra toss, and “hurrah,” echoed
Creepy, silently to be sure, but with none the less gusto for all that.

“Oh how I should like to try! I wonder when they’ll ask me;” and
suddenly the thought that no one noticed him, which had been such a
refuge at first, rushed on him with a very disagreeable suggestion and
brought the old “all but me” nearer to his lips than it had been for
months. But just then he saw that they _were_ noticing him; the game
was halting and more than one group were putting their heads together
and glancing towards his corner with whispers that must have something
to do with him.

“You ought to ask him to play,” said Tom, whose feeling of
responsibility in the matter had made him decidedly uncomfortable all
the time--only, as he had declared at first, he really didn’t know what
to do.

“Humph,” said Carter, who, still smarting under his own humiliation,
felt that it would be a relief to put somebody else in his place, “ask
_him_ to play! A bright idea that would be. What’s a fellow like him
going to do?”

The words floated over to Creepy’s ears, though they were not really
intended to do so, and sent the blood tingling to his fingers’ ends,
and the thought of the doctor seemed as far off as if a whole world
lay between them.

The boys laughed and the game began again, but a feeling like ice was
gathering around Creepy’s heart. He was not to play! They would not
ask him! “Why not you?” Perhaps he did not hear, perhaps he had made a
mistake. Oh, where was the doctor? Why had he ever come here at all?

“I say, you ought to do it,” began Tom again, uneasily; “the professor
said he was to have a good time out of it somehow.”

“Suppose you mind your own business,” said Carter; but it seemed to
Davis, who felt himself “just on the brink” with the professor about
the almanac, that he might lay an anchor to windward, and he made his
way across to where Creepy stood.

“Hallo, can you pitch a ball?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I never tried,” said Creepy, forcing the words from
between his lips.

“Well, take this,” said Davis, falling back a little, “and stand about
where you are, and let me have it the best you know how.”

Creepy took the ball and threw it with a trembling hand; it struck the
ground some distance from Davis’ feet.

“Ha, ha,” shouted Carter, “how’s that for high?”

“How is that for Humpy?” answered Hal Fenimore, in a rather low tone,
but heard well enough for all that.


     “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
     Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”


Half a dozen voices in the crowd took up the chorus, and it rang across
the playground until Tom looked up at the professor’s window in agony.

Ah, those words! The lame child understood it all now! In one instant
the veil his good angel had hung for all those years between his
eyes and his deformity was taken away and an evil demon seemed to be
chuckling the whole truth in his ear.

He was a cripple, a hunchback, an ugly thing to look upon! He should
never be like other people, and other people would never forget that he
was unlike them. Wherever he went he was to be marked, ridiculed, and
avoided! A prince indeed! Ah, the doctor had been mocking him, mocking
him, with all the rest! The lonely life he had thought ended to-day,
had in reality only begun, for “what was a fellow like him going to
do?” Who wanted a humpback to take a share in their games, much less to
be counted among their friends? What was there for him but to shrink
away and hide from scornful eyes for ever?

His eager, glowing face had turned white as marble; the great eyes
dilated and flashed. He drew himself up for a moment, quite beyond
his poor shrunken height, and then with a wild cry, started from the
grounds and fled away down the street. Away, away! Anywhere that his
flying feet could carry him, only _away_ from everybody and everything!

The boys stood and looked in each others’ faces without a word. “I
guess you’ve done it now,” said Davis, turning to where Carter stood.

“I didn’t do it,” said Carter, too near being really terrified to
retort as warmly as he might another time. “Better aim where it belongs
if you’ve got anything to say.”

At this moment Aleck ran down the steps, looking as if in search of
some one.

“I say, Tom,” he began, “where’s that little fellow that came this
morning? I thought he was up stairs, but the professor says he made him
over to you. What have you done with him?”

Tom’s tongue was fast to the roof of his mouth, and Aleck looked at the
tell-tale faces of the other boys.

“Look here!” and his eyes flashed as the boys had never seen them,
“don’t tell me there’s a coward among you dastardly enough to touch a
helpless little fellow that’s carrying a burden like that!”

“We didn’t touch him,” muttered Hal Fenimore. “I suppose he didn’t like
what we had to say, and he stepped out.”

“Didn’t touch him! You’d better have touched him, better have struck
him in the face a hundred times over, than--which way did he go?”

Tom pointed to one of the gates, and Aleck followed through it in a
flash, and was looking up and down the street; but in vain--only brisk,
erect walkers were passing on as far as his eye could reach. He ran a
little way past one corner and then another, but no crooked, dwarfed
little figure was in sight; and burning with indignation, he came
hastily back, to find the bell had rung and the boys had taken seats
some time before.

And was that the professor standing in the desk, his eyes flashing
fire, his face white, and his voice so terrible that half the boys had
got their heads hidden behind one thing or another, as if they thought
it was going to strike them?

“Didn’t think, and didn’t touch him!” he was thundering, in answer
to the excuses offered; “you _did_ think; you thought it would be a
pleasure to see a suffering little life crushed down still farther
under your taunts! And you _did_ touch him; you touched him with words
that were sharper than a serpent’s tooth, and may rankle like poisoned
arrows in his heart to the latest day of his life! No one could ever
have made me believe that I had such a school; and I could give it up
now, and give my whole time to one little fellow like that you have
driven away, with more hope of reward than I feel with you to-day.”

There was no reprimand for Aleck’s tardiness; the professor understood
too well. He had missed the two boys together, and on inquiring for
them the truth had come out. It seemed as if the rest of that morning
never would take itself away, but it was gone at last, and the boys
filed out under the still scornful glances of the master.

But as Aleck passed he beckoned him to the desk with a different look.

“You are a friend of that little fellow?” he asked.

“I’d like to be,” said Aleck; “but though I’ve seen him two or three
times, I didn’t know his name or even where he lives.”

“You know where Dr. Thorndyke’s is?”

Aleck nodded assent.

“Well, he belongs there, and I want to send our apologies to the
doctor; excuses I have none. Will you go and see how much harm has
been done, and say whatever can be said? And assure the doctor, if he
will try once more, not only shall there be no more trouble, but every
possible reparation shall be made.”

Aleck took the commission gladly, but at the same time doubtfully
enough. Now he should be able to tell Nelly that he had really found
him; but to “say whatever was to be said,” was not so easy, by a long
mark. Still he must know the worst of what had been done, and perhaps
it might not be so very bad, after all, and it would certainly be
some comfort to the little fellow to hear what a towering wrath the
professor was in about it.




CHAPTER XII.


The black horse stood at the door, but Joan had no idea of letting
Aleck see the doctor. It was part of her duty to stand guard over his
minutes and save them for him when she could.

“The doctor’s hame,” she said; “I’ll nae deny it, but it’s no
office-hours, and I mind he’s engaged just at this moment. If ye wad
hae the gudeness to call again atween the hours o’ twa and three ye
might see him then wi’ convenience to every one, or if ye will e’en
leave an order on the slate. It hangs just here in the reach o’ all.”

“Thank you,” said Aleck; “but if the doctor is engaged, can I see--”
he hesitated, for in all the excitement of coming off he had not even
asked the professor Creepy’s name.

“The little fellow that--that came to school this morning?” he went on.

“The wee bairnie? He’s no come hame, and unco whiles it is to keep a
bit thing like him cooped between walls where never a breath of free
air or sunshine can find its way.”

“He’s not come home?” said Aleck in alarm, “then I _must_ see the
doctor!” and Joan, frightened herself, though she did not know why,
opened the office-door without another word.

The doctor stood before the library with an open book in his hand,
studying up authorities on a difficult point, but one glance at Aleck
brought back his thoughts and sent a misgiving through them like a
flash; he remembered seeing him on the school-grounds that morning.

“Have you a message from the little fellow at the school?” he asked,
with one of his quick looks, and without waiting for Aleck.

“No, sir, I hoped I should find him here; but the professor wished me
to say how much he regretted--indeed, sir, he is very sorry, as well
as very angry, and we cannot really tell how it happened, but the boys
did something or said something at recess that troubled him, and he
disappeared before any one could tell which way he went. The professor
was sure he was at home, or he would have sent sooner, but--”

Before the sentence was finished the doctor had thrown his book across
the room with such force that it went flying through the open window,
where nothing but the iron railing of the little balcony outside saved
it from the sidewalk, and the doctor himself was halfway out of the
front-door. He turned suddenly and put his hand on Aleck’s shoulder.

“Thank you, my man,” he said, “and thank the professor for me, if you
please,” and in another instant he was gone, and sparks were flying
from under the black horse’s hoofs, almost out of sight down the road
leading to the almshouse. He did not know why he chose it, except that
it was the way he had taken so many times to find him before, and the
one most familiar to Creepy himself. On, on, a mile, more than a mile,
no distance at all to the flying hoofs, but a walk the doctor had never
consented to Creepy’s trying yet, though he had begged for it more than
once. The almshouse was in sight now, but there was Enoch working on
the road, and taking off his hat with as grand a flourish and as serene
a smile as if he had never heard of such a thing as trouble in the
world. Creepy could not have gone that way, but here was the old turn
in the road that he used to visit so often.

A sudden thought struck the doctor. They had passed in there to follow
the trout brook, and down the road, perhaps half a mile away, was a
great overhanging rock, facing the brook, covered with moss, and a deep
velvety bed of moss beneath it. Creepy had looked at it, and said what
a place that would be to hide from a storm, and the doctor remembered
the half-laughing half-serious look in his face as he said it.

He turned the black horse with a whirl round the corner and down the
road toward the point where the rock lay. Not a trace of any one yet,
and none to ask whom they had seen; but now the rock was coming in
sight, and what was that fluttering on a torn splinter of the fence?
Something white, a little thing, one of the very handkerchiefs Joan
had been hemming in such a hurry that “the wee bairnie suld be as weel
supplied wi’ everything as ony he might meet wi’ at the school.”

Was that Creepy, that poor little huddled up heap of something lying
there, with hands holding tightly the very roots of the moss, and a
white face half buried in its depths?

For one instant, at the sound of the doctor’s step, he raised the eyes
that had been so bright that morning; but in another he had turned them
hastily away.

“What did you come here for?” he cried, as he had once before so long
ago; “what does any one come to me for? I came here to be alone! No
one must come to me again! No one must ever look at me until I die!”

The doctor stooped and lifted Creepy gently but firmly in his arms.

“Yes, they must,” he said, “_I_ must come and take you away from here
this very moment. Don’t you know you might die, lying on such a bed as
that all this time?”

“Oh, I _wish_ I could! I wish I were dead, dead, dead!” and then
suddenly raising his head, he looked almost fiercely in the doctor’s
face.

“No I don’t! I _don’t_ wish it, for then the angels would cry out,
‘Look at Humpy!’ when they saw me coming! Oh, where shall I go? Where
will no one ever come?”

What the doctor would have said at that moment, if he could have
reached the right people to say it to, and how much more terrible
than even the professor’s his words would have been, there was no
opportunity to know. He clenched his teeth together for a moment as if
he were fighting a terrible battle with something, and then spoke in
tenderer tones than even Creepy had ever heard from him, but with the
same ring in them that had always brought comfort to the lame child.

“Where shall you go? I hope you don’t want to go anywhere away from
me; don’t you know you are all I have in the world, little man?”

Once more Creepy opened his eyes and looked at him. All through the
long hour that he had lain there, an hour that had seemed like a year
of agony sweeping through his life, the same evil voice that had
whispered to him on the playground, had brought up every such word the
doctor had ever spoken, and thrown them at him like cruel taunts! He
had been mocking him with all the rest! It was not _true_ there was a
place in the world and a share in it for him, as well as other people!
He had never meant it, he had known better all the time! How dared he
ever tell him so!

But he was here again, he had come to find him, he _did_ care! He had
not meant to mock him, it was _not_ all a vanished dream!

With a low cry he threw his arms around the doctor’s neck and clung
convulsively there, and in another moment Jet looked wonderingly over
his shoulder again while the doctor, one arm still holding the crippled
child, stepped into the chaise and gathered up the reins with his free
hand.




CHAPTER XIII.


There never had been anything in the professor’s school like the
excitement that was buzzing in every corner the next morning before the
bell rang. The boys were gathered in groups here and there, and the
affair of the day before, and its probable consequences, were the only
subjects under discussion.

“I say, Carter,” said one of the smaller boys, “I guess you wont hear
much more about the almanac, after what you had to do with this!”

“What did I have to do with it?” retorted Carter. “If you’ve got
anything to say, you’d better keep it for the one that was first to
call out _Humpy_!”

“And if it comes to that,” answered Hal, bravely enough, but looking
rather pale, “the first one never would have been heard if a dozen or
more of you hadn’t taken it up and shouted it loud enough for all the
world to hear. There’s a few of you to divide what the professor has to
say anyhow.”

“Well, never mind who it was,” said another voice, “but what’s up
anyhow? What’s the mischief done, and what’s the professor going to do
about it?”

No one seemed to have an answer to these questions, and at last Tom
ventured, though terrified at the sound of his own words.

“They say he’ll never get over it; they say he’s going to die.”

“Pshaw!” said Carter, “die of what?” but Tom’s words sounded very
disagreeably and there was a moment’s silence again.

“Well,” said one of the larger boys at last, “it’s too bad anyhow; it’s
a shame to crowd a little fellow like that, that’s never had half a
chance, though I don’t know as anybody meant to do it; but anyhow the
professor is in a terrible way, and I don’t know how he’s going to get
over it, if one or two fellows don’t get a ticket of leave before he’s
done with the thing.”

This had about as ugly a sound as what Tom had said, and the boys
feeling there wasn’t much comfort to be had in pursuing the subject,
broke up and went slowly into their places. But that was only fleeing
into the very teeth of the tempest. The black eyes of the professor
were fixed on the door, and each one as he entered had to pass under a
look so scathing that it seemed every guilty conscience must be read
through to the depths. And when he did speak, the words of yesterday
seemed only the first mutterings of a storm that was crashing over
their very heads to-day.

“Would you like to hear the message Dr. Thorndyke sends to my school
this morning? He sends you word that he doesn’t know whether you have
killed the little fellow or not; the chances of life and death seem
about equal at present; but that you might about as well have killed
him, as to do the work you did for him, body and soul!

“And _I_ would rather have heard that any misfortune had fallen on
you, than that you were capable of so cowardly a deed: striking at the
one little glimmer of light that was struggling up in a poor life like
that, and putting it out for ever, for aught you know! I have seen
enough of the same spirit among yourselves--the spirit that delights in
seeing another humiliated and pained; and it’s base and contemptible
enough even where each one takes his turn and stands his chance with
the rest. But when it comes to a little creature who, with hardly the
physical strength that lies in the left-hand of one of you great,
cowardly fellows, is trying to stand up, and _is_ standing like a hero
under the burden Heaven has seen fit to lay upon him, I have no words
for it. If I had had the least conception of the natures you have, I
would have gone down into the playground and defended him from you as
I would from a company of tigers; and with more need, for I believe
many a wild beast would have found some noble instinct by which the
strong cherishes the weak, and have saved his life. And if I can learn
the names of those who are responsible in this affair, I will expel
them every one from my school, for nothing I can teach them from books
will ever make anything better than brutes of them, until they learn
what are the first elements of a manly nature and a life that is above
contempt!”

There was no hiding away this time. No one dared to hide, lest he
should be taken for the guilty one; but guilty and innocent alike
almost felt their blood stand still before the professor was done
with them, and could bring those flashing eyes back from their sweep
around the room and fasten them down upon anything like a book. Carter
felt that if he could only live through the next six weeks, till his
graduation, he would not meet the professor’s eyes again as long as
he lived, if he could help it; Hal Fenimore had a mental somerset by
which his memory carried him back to the night of his chess-playing
with Tom, and a vague idea occurred to him that what his uncle had
said about “principles” then hadn’t altogether a different key-note
from what the professor was thundering this morning; and poor innocent
little Tom sat trembling with the feeling that in some way the whole
thing lay at his door, and would almost have been ready to change
places with Creepy, if that could in any sense have undone or atoned
for it.

Aleck sat feeling almost as much distressed as Tom with the thought
how different everything might have been if he had spied Creepy before
going back to the schoolroom, where his errand had really been to see
if he could find him. He had followed slowly behind, when the doctor
left the house in such hot haste, wishing he could do something or
search somewhere--but where? He felt sure the doctor knew, however,
from the unhesitating way he had dashed off, and it would be all right;
but when evening came he felt as if he must go once more and see how
things really were, and, moreover, he had given only half of the
professor’s message. Perhaps there had been no great harm done, after
all, and it would be such a comfort to know.

But he would hardly have mustered courage if he had realized the
reception he was to meet with. The moment Joan recognized him she
bristled like a watch-dog that had seen one onset upon his charge, and
did not know how to be furious enough in guarding it from a second. Her
face was white and hard, the spectacles sat grimly on her nose, and
she held the door so little open that her own form filled the space,
as if she thought Aleck was going to squeeze himself in if the least
opportunity were left.

“He’s asleep,” she said in a sharp, dry tone, “and the doctor says
he’s to remain sae for mony an hour yet, and it’s o’ the Lord’s mercy
that there’s aught in the power o’ medicine that can do it for a puir
suffering soul and body that a parcel o’ iron-clad boys have made it
their pleasure to trample upon.”

“Is he so very ill?” asked Aleck, too much troubled to be intimidated
by her manner. “The boys will want to know how he is.”

“The boys!” exclaimed Joan; “we want nane o’ their messages, but if ye
will tak them ane from mysel’, ye might tell them--”

She checked herself. “Na, na, that were a sinfu’ thought; I maun forgie
as I hope to be forgi’en; but it’s a cruel sight to look upon a little
life that the doctor had been cherishing and nourishing as no other
man could or would hae done, and see it lyin’ there now a crushed and
blighted thing.”

“Is he too ill?” ventured Aleck once more; “do you think he will be too
ill when he wakes to care for these flowers my sister has sent him? He
has seemed to like them once or twice before.”

“And were it your very sel’,” exclaimed Joan, throwing open the door,
“were it your very sel’ that made the bairnie’s heart sae glad mony a
time, when he’d never kenned before sae muckle as the fashion God made
a flower to grow in? Come inside, then, and see the doctor himsel’. It
will do his heart good to see a face that has once looked friendly on
the bairn.”

“No,” said Aleck, “I wont come in now, thank you, but I would like to
come every day for a while and ask how he is.”

“Come, then,” said Joan, “and as often as ye like, and the first day
he’s weel eneugh to speak to ony friend but the twa that’s truest to
him, ye shall e’en talk wi’ him a bit yoursel’.”

Joan wondered what made the doctor start, just the merest trifle, as
she carried the flowers to him and told him where they came from, and
she didn’t hear him say to himself, “So, so! the little fellow has
been thinking he hasn’t a friend in the world, and he’s richer than I
am this very moment!” She marched off up stairs again to take another
look at Creepy, and make sure the medicine was doing its work, and
that he was still asleep. But the doctor had looked out for that; and
wherever Creepy might be wandering, this world with all its ugliness
and sharp places was shut out; perfect rest for body and heart was the
only hope for saving them from going down together under the shock they
had received, and not until late the next morning did Creepy open his
eyes with anything like a clear look at things around him.

There stood the doctor, looking as strong and as fresh and exactly the
same in every way as the first day he saw him under the old butternut.

“Well, little man, and so you have waked at last. You and I both had a
nap of it last night; but the sun is shining and the birds are singing
for us once more.”

“All but me!”

“All but me!” those self-same dreaded, almost forgotten words once
more. So that miserable work of yesterday had brought them to life,
and killed everything else at the same time! The doctor stepped out
of sight, and for one instant Creepy did not know where he was. Only
at the window, having a sharp tussle with yesterday’s battle again;
but the next moment he was at Creepy’s side once more, looking just as
before, and holding Nellie Halliday’s flowers before his eyes.

“See here, little man, the world is beautiful after all, is it not?”

“All but me,” and the great eyes looked wearily at the doctor.

It took all the self-command the doctor could muster at that moment to
place the vase quietly on the table again, and take Creepy’s pulse in
his fingers without letting him suspect how hotly his own were flying.

“What is it?” he asked as gently as if there were neither battles nor
enemies to be thought of, as Creepy closed his eyes and turned wearily
on his pillow.

“Only the pain.”

“The old pain?”

Creepy nodded, and the doctor laid down his hand and stepped quietly
out of sight again, for that was the very story he had dreaded to
hear. There it was, raging and burning up and down the twisted spine,
the same trouble as of old, and threatening not only to undo all the
winter’s work, but to make mischief ten times greater than had ever
been there before.

“Hoot!” muttered Joan from the half-open door where she had been
watching the whole scene, “and fever too, plain eneugh, and as dree a
pain i’ the head, I warrant, as in the puir back itsel’, wi’ sic great
cords o’ blue veins swellin’ above the bairn’s brow. Not a word wad the
doctor hearken when I told him a cripple like itsel’ wad be wantin’ a
nurse ane day; but now the day has come, the nurse shall be Joan and
nane beside;” and stalking noiselessly to the head of the bed she took
her stand.

Aleck came the next day and the next; there was only the same story to
be told.

“He’s no himsel’ at all yet, wi’ all the drugs and sleeping potions
we’re striving to rest his soul and body wi’,” Joan said, and Aleck
turned away, feeling miserable enough. As he reached the corner, he
heard some one call him, and Carter came running up from behind.

“I say,” he said, pointing back toward Dr. Thorndyke’s, “have you been
up there?”

“Yes,” said Aleck.

“What’s the news there?”

“Just the same.”

“Do they call him very sick?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s the shock, they say, and the long run, and lying
so long on the wet ground. They say even if he pulls through this,
he’ll never be well again.”

“Well, it’s a shame,” said Carter, “and I’d give all I’m worth if I’d
had nothing to do with it. But I felt so confounded mean when they were
all letting me have it about that miserable almanac, that I couldn’t
help letting fly at the first game that came along.”

“And did that take off any of the meanness?” asked Aleck.

“Did it? I tell you I could have sold myself for a yellow dog any
minute since. I didn’t see it at the time; but if I ever get through
with this, I’m going to start things on a different tack somehow. The
only trouble is to see just how.”

“I’ll tell you how,” said Aleck. “If you could manage to remember how
the Lord has treated us, and that the only way to make a gentleman
or a Christian, is the one he taught us, to love him first, and your
neighbor as yourself.”

“Yes, but it makes a fellow too much of a prig to keep going over all
that in his mind all the time, and measuring a text to everything he
does or says.”

“Well, don’t go over it in your mind then,” said Aleck smiling; “just
feel it in your heart, and you’ll be all right without stopping to
measure anything when the time comes.”

“I don’t know,” said Carter, “but I must manage it somehow; I’ll never
be mean enough to make anybody else feel mean again, if I can help
it. But what’s the professor going to do about it? Has he found out
anything yet?”

“I don’t know; I think he’s got an idea he’d have to come into the
graduating class, and he don’t like to break that up. And I heard the
doctor begging him not to make any trouble.”

“Good for him,” said Carter, with a grateful warming at his heart; “it
would make a horrid mess for me at home if I got into trouble just now.
The executive has some pretty strict notions, and I should be likely
to lose something I’ve been fighting hard for, for a year. Do you
know what I want to strike for when I’ve done with Latin grammar and
all that rubbish? I want to go to sea, and my father wants me in the
counting-house with him. Think of that! Mounted up on a stool behind a
set of leather-covered books, with never a chance to stretch yourself,
or breathe the air from morning till night, and smelling of everything
from gunny-bags up.”

“And what do you expect to smell if you get aboard ship?” asked Aleck
laughing.

“Oh, I don’t know; horrid things enough, I suppose, but there
will always be a sniff of the glorious old ocean, and the feeling
you’re a free man, any how. That is to say, after you get on to the
quarter-deck, and that’s what I shall aim for, and make it too, as
fast as those things can be done. There are ships enough coming to the
counting-house every year to give all the boys in the firm good berths
if they wanted them; and as I’m the only one that does, it would seem
pretty tough if I couldn’t have one. The counting-house! Bah!”

“Where do you think I’m going, if you think the counting-house so bad?”
asked Aleck.

“I don’t know. Where?”

“In with Uncle Ralph.”

“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Carter, looking at him in amazement. “I
thought you were a dead shot for the law.”

“So dead that I shall never come to life again, I guess,” said Aleck.
“Just step in one week after graduation, and you’ll find me there
behind the counter, mixing up everything that ever went into a mortar,
and not feeling myself anything but a free man either. But you never
could rest on dry land since I knew you, and I suppose you must follow
your destiny.”

“And when I have caught it, I’ll come to you to fit out my medicine
chest, and we’ll have time then to decide who’s having the best of it,”
said Carter. “But see here, can’t a fellow do anything down there at
the doctor’s? It would be a sort of comfort to make amends if there was
any way to do it.”

Aleck shook his head.

“He wont be fit to see any one for longer than I like to think, and I
believe his old nurse would sooner let a flying dragon into the house,
if she knew you belonged to the school. Making amends is a comfort that
don’t always come after a piece of work like that.”

“That’s a fact,” said Carter; “well, let me know if there’s a chance
turning up anywhere;” and the two boys separated.




CHAPTER XIV.


Aleck came for news every day for a week before he got any different
report, but at last the hard anxious look had lifted a little from
Joan’s face, and she almost smiled as she saw who was there.

“The bairnie’s waked once mair,” she said, “and lifts his een at us as
if he kenned wha were his friends again, and the doctor’ll no object to
his having a pillow on the lounge for a bit change, the day. But the
pain is unco dree, and shows no sign o’ wearin’ out for many a day,
though the Lord suld een show pity and tak it frae him at the last.
But ye’ll come again, and I mak nae doubt we’ll soon find the day when
ye can speak wi’ him yoursel’, and get his ain thanks for all your
kindness.”

But the doctor was not quite ready for any more experiments just yet.
If he had been sure that Creepy had only seen Aleck at the window,
he would gladly have tried, but he would have liked to keep every
remembrance of the school out of his sight for ever.

But in a few days more, it showed plainly that something must be done,
or he would have only the same little patient as a year ago on his
hands, and with nothing like the hope there was of better things.

“They’ve done their work well, those boys,” he said. “I should say
that was the same grieved hopeless face, the same old pain, and the
same silent matter-of-course bearing of it, that I found under that
dismal old butternut-tree a year ago. The only difference is, it’s got
a ten-times stronger hold than it ever had before, the pain as well
as the rest of it, and I’m afraid it’s a life business this time. I
can’t get a word from the child unless I fight for it, and I don’t dare
try even that, for fear of that miserable ‘all but me,’ that’s taken
possession of him again. I wish those fellows at the school could just
once see the smile he tries to give me, as if he wanted things to be
comfortable with _me_, though there was no hope for _him_ in the world.
And there isn’t, if time and doing just the right thing don’t bring him
up out of this better than I see any promise of just now; and what that
right thing is, isn’t so easy to decide from one day to another.”

The doctor paced the room two or three times, and then stopped and
shot one of the old quick looks and warming smiles into Creepy’s face.

“See here, little man, do you know what friend has been bringing you
these flowers ever since you were sick?”

Creepy shook his head.

“I haven’t any friends except you--you two,” he said.

“Haven’t you? Perhaps you have more than you think. Do you remember who
jumped through a window to give you a bunch of roses one day? It is he,
and he wants to see you. Do you think you feel well enough to-day?”

“Oh no!” exclaimed Creepy, shrinking back among his pillows with almost
a look of terror, and a hot flush coming up to his face, “don’t let
_any_ one come here! Don’t let any one come to see me ever again, as
long as I live!” and the doctor saw the slender fingers tremble as he
shut them tightly together.

“Well, well,” said the doctor quickly, “no one shall come until you
wish it, but perhaps you will think differently before long. You will
be tired of Joan and me some day;” and he turned off to talking of
something else.

But he would not leave it so long.

“This will never do,” he said, when he had waited a few days more and
Creepy was regularly established on the lounge; “the child must have
his medicines, however bitter the first taste may be, and he needs just
what he did need when I sent him to school. If he had found companions
then, instead of a set of wild animals--” The doctor stopped, for he
didn’t like to finish the sentence, even in his thoughts. The contrast
of what might have been, with what was likely to be, was too sharp.

So he turned suddenly and lifted Creepy in his arms. “Look here, little
man,” he said, “whose word would you take first, mine or the first
person’s you might happen to come across?”

Creepy hesitated.

The recollection of the whispering he had heard as he lay under the old
rock, shot through him. “The doctor had been mocking him with all the
rest;” but he could not think so; he knew it was a lie--and yet!

“Eh, little man?” asked the doctor again, waiting for his answer.

“I know--I know you always tell me what you think is true,” he said at
last.

The doctor wouldn’t notice how he shaped what he said, and went on.

“Good. Do you remember I told you once there was a place in the world
and a share in it for you, the same as for anyone else? Well, I told
you the truth, and it is just as true to-day as it was then, but
there’s a battle to share in, as well as a kingdom. We’ve each got to
take our place in the ranks, little man, and you with the rest, and
you’ve got some fighting to do that doesn’t come to all of us for each
one has his own. As a general thing you’ve got to fight this old pain
of yours I’m afraid. I hoped it was sent where it would never find its
way back, but I’m afraid now we shall have more or less of it in the
way, for a good many years. And you’ll have to fight with feeling tired
and ill a good deal, while you see others well and strong; and you’ll
have to remember that you are small and crooked while you see them tall
and straight. And you will have to know that every one who looks at you
for the first time will notice this, though those who know you will
never think of it, unless to be sorry.

“Do you think you can step right into the ranks and meet all this
like a brave soldier, remembering that you are serving the King and
the Elder Brother? Never mind about answering just now; you can think
about it awhile, and remember he has not set you to do this without
providing you with weapons. He has given you a nature that can make
every one love you, and a brain that can make every one respect you,
and can enable you to leave half the rest of the world behind in
anything you undertake; and I promise you you’ll get stronger, and find
yourself richer, every day you carry on the fight, like a brave little
man as you are.”

The fight began then and there! _Must_ he, _could_ he go out into the
world again? Must he let any one but the doctor and Joan look at him?
must he hear what any one might choose to say? He _had_ thought he
could _never_ open the doctor’s door again, never see a boy of his own
age, never see any one. But if it was serving the King and the Elder
Brother! If _they_ wished it! And if they would think he were a coward
or a shirk if he didn’t come up!

There isn’t sharper fighting on many a battle-field, than went on in
the corner of Creepy’s lounge that day; but it was too sharp to last
long, and he was too brave a little soldier to lose the battle; and
when Joan opened the door for Aleck the next morning, a voice, not very
strong to be sure, but clear and true, called from the little room at
the head of the stairs, “Ask him to come in, please.”

“Come, then,” said Joan, only too gladly, and Aleck sprang up the
stairs and pushed open the door which stood a little ajar.

Creepy’s courage had almost left him again, by that time. What if he
should say anything about that day?

Aleck himself had taken one second on the way to wonder how he was
going to manage it, but he stepped in as briskly and as gayly as if
they were the oldest friends in the world, and everything had always
been going on merrily between them.

“Why, how are you?” he said, giving his hand to Creepy; “we’ve missed
you so long from the window, Nelly and I, that we were afraid you
weren’t coming any more, and how to find you we didn’t know. And here
you are, not five minutes walk from us after all! You see we couldn’t
let it go so, after we had once got to expecting you, and so when you
stopped coming I returned some of your visits. That’s fair, isn’t it?
But you’ve been horridly sick, haven’t you? Shut up here all these
pleasant days, and no end of pain, they tell me.”

“Yes,” said Creepy, “but that doesn’t matter much. I was used to pain
a long time, and if it comes back now, why it’s only the same thing,
you know.”

[Illustration]

“Well, if it went off once, it will again, I hope; and the first thing
when it’s better, we shall be looking for you. There isn’t much in the
conservatory just now of course, but the garden almost goes ahead of
it. Did you ever take care of flowers?”

“I never saw one till I saw yours,” said Creepy; and then seeing a look
of astonishment, he added, “I never saw anything, until the doctor
came.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Aleck, laughing, that Creepy need not
see how he really felt, “those eyes of yours look as if they had seen
a great deal, and looked through it all pretty well too. But books are
the main things, I guess, from what I see about here. Does the doctor
let you read yet?”

“Not much; he brought me a book yesterday, but I’m not to read it yet.”

“That looks jolly,” said Aleck, taking up the book and running over the
illustrations. “There’s a sail-boat that looks for all the world like
mine. Do you like sailing? I’m going out in the harbor this afternoon,
and I wish you were well enough to go along. Perhaps you’d like a
row-boat better; everybody likes rowing, I believe.”

“All but me,” said Creepy, and then he was glad the doctor was not
there to hear; he did not mean to say it, but it slipped out.

“It does want a pretty strong arm,” said Aleck, “and I don’t know that
it’s quite equal to sailing, after all;” and then he went off into a
long discourse about boats and yachts and rigging, that was rather
bewildering to Creepy; but it was so pleasant to hear it for all that,
that he almost forgot everything else, and the battle of the day before
went clear out of sight. But it all rose up again when Aleck said he
was afraid he was staying too long, and then returned to the subject of
Creepy’s visits.

“You’ll come and let Nelly see you again the first day you’re well
enough, wont you?”

The hot flush came up once more, and Creepy shrank back among the
pillows, as he had when the doctor had asked him to see Aleck, and for
a moment the enemy had the upper-hand again.

“Oh, I can’t! I can’t let her see me, and I don’t want ever to look at
her again; she is too beautiful!”

“And don’t you like beautiful things?” asked Aleck, though fearing
that he understood only too well.

“Yes; but if _she_ should look at _me_! If she should say ‘Humpy!’ She
would think it, if she didn’t say the words, and I couldn’t bear it.”

There! he had done the very thing he had thought would kill him if
Aleck did it!

In a moment Aleck was on his knee before Creepy’s corner, and had one
arm placed gently and tenderly about his neck.

“Are you thinking of that still?” he said. “Haven’t you got those
miserable words out of your head yet? If you only knew how the boys
are always saying such things to each other, and how nobody ever minds
it or thinks of it again. It’s a horrid way they have, and they ought
to have seen that you weren’t used to roughing it; they’ve been sorry
enough since, but if you only knew how they never gave a thought to
what they were saying, you might forget it.”

“But they told the truth,” said Creepy, looking drearily at Aleck;
“they called me Humpy, and said, ‘What is a fellow like him going to
do?’ and it was true! No, I can’t forget it, but I can bear it; the
doctor says I must, to be a good soldier, but I shall always know it is
true.”

“And what if it is true? What if you are not as straight as they, and
haven’t the strength for all the rough things they have going on? Don’t
you know you’ve got a face that would make up for all the backs in
the world, and that you can leave all the boys where they can’t find
themselves in their studies?”

Creepy shook his head.

“It isn’t only they; every one will say it as long as I live.”

“Nobody will say it that has any sense, and you can soon show the rest
of them that they don’t know what they are talking about. You’ll make a
place for yourself in the world to be proud of yet.”

Creepy looked up with the same smile that worried the doctor so when he
saw it.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think there’ll be anything for me but to fight.
The doctor used to think I should have my share, but he doesn’t think
so now; he thinks I shall always be sick. Not that he says so, but I
know.”

“Oh, don’t say so, don’t even think so, until you know it is true. And
even if it should be true, don’t you know how close the Lord Jesus used
to come to the weak and the sick, and that he’s just the same now in
his heart? It always seemed to me it would almost pay to suffer a good
deal, just to know how tender his heart was towards you, and how he
must be thinking of it all, and only waiting for the day to come when
he can take it all away. He must have a great many thoughts about you,
that he never has about great, strong, rough fellows like the rest of
us.”

Creepy did not answer for a moment; he could not have told Aleck for
his life what a help it was to hear him say all these things. He only
looked in his face, and said, “I shall never be one of His princes, but
I’ll try to make as good a soldier as I can. And I hope you’ll come
again--that is--you’ve been so kind that I forgot--but, of course,
you’ll have other things to do.”

“Of course I’ll come,” said Aleck; “I should not know how to be
refused, after this. I’ve got to keep a sharp look out ahead, it’s
true, till after examination; but a fellow must have his pleasures
somewhere, you know. Good-by; I’ll be sure to find you better when I
come again.”

The doctor thought so too. Creepy was off the lounge the next day,
and in a day or two more insisted upon beginning to open the door
for patients again. The pain was there still, and bad enough, it is
true, and there was too much of the old expression in his smile; but
there he was, going quietly about again, very much as if nothing had
happened, except indeed that there was no strength yet.

“Look at that!” said the doctor. “If one visit from a boy four years
older than himself has been such a medicine, what would it have been if
he could have gone to school with twenty of his own age, as I wanted
him to, instead of being hunted down by a set of--well, no matter what
they were--the very first day I trusted him among them!”

The doctor was right, but he hadn’t got hold of quite the whole of it.
Aleck’s visit had done a great work, true enough, but the best part
of it was helping Creepy to clinch the victory the doctor’s words had
set him to fighting for just before. And if he had lost the feeling,
perhaps for ever, that had made Mrs. Ganderby notice how light his step
was, and how he “held up his head to look other folks in the face,”
there was something else keeping his heart warm, and giving him courage
for what might be before him. He couldn’t help seeing what he had to
meet; no one could convince him that it was not there; but he would be
one of the King’s soldiers; he would fight as bravely as he could!




CHAPTER XV.


Examination-day passed off as it always did at the professor’s school,
creditably, if not brilliantly, for teachers and scholars. Aleck was
decidedly the star, but Carter and Davis both did well; and in the
lower classes Hal and Tom came off with a very respectable score and
some flying colors. Tom had kept out of Hal’s way as he would have
avoided rocks and shallows if he had been putting to sea; and Hal was
for once so entirely engrossed in keeping his own lookout, that he had
no leisure to watch for slips in his neighbors, or to enjoy them if
they happened to occur. There was enough for the boys to talk over for
at least the first week of holidays, and Carter lost very little time
in getting hold of Aleck for a talk about past, present, and future.
The future had the best of it, though, and he was jubilant over the
prospect that it gave.

“Isn’t that what you call pretty jolly?” he went on. “Carter & Co. have
consented at last, and are going to give me a chance in life, instead
of making me into a wooden thing mounted on a stool and doing short
sums in arithmetic for them all day! Just imagine me standing on the
quarter-deck and giving orders to every soul on board, and feeling my
vessel bound over the blue waves as I direct!”

Aleck laughed.

“Do you expect to take command the day you go aboard?”

“Well, no, it must be confessed, that isn’t the usual way. I’ve got to
share my mess with the roughest of them for a while, and work my way
up; but I shall have a command just as soon as I am fit for it.”

“And when will that be?” asked Aleck.

“When I understand the ship and the ship’s work. A man isn’t fit to
give orders until he knows how everything, to the very last twist of a
rope, ought to be done, and how to do it himself, too.”

“And is that all?”

“I don’t know,” said Carter, a little puzzled; “that’s what the
officers say. Shouldn’t you think that was about the whole of it?”

“It may be,” said Aleck; “but I was always taught that a man wasn’t
ready to command others until he had learned to command himself.”

“Pshaw!” said Carter. “What a fellow you are to preach! I don’t believe
I could tell you what time it is, that it wouldn’t give you a handle
for a sermon or a lecture, whatever it may be. But the truth is, you
hit the nail on the head so well that I can’t help liking it every
time. I’ll treasure that up, and what you said the other day about
making a man and a gentleman of myself.”

“By becoming a Christian!” said Aleck.

“Well, I suppose so, only it sounds so much like prigging to put it
that way.”

“What sounds like prigging? If a ship-captain should offer to take
you under his special instruction after you get aboard, and teach you
all he knew, and make a first-rate officer of you, would you call it
prigging if you were to try your best to learn, and come as near his
own mark as you could?”

“No, indeed! And if I can only get a chance on the Cumbermede, I should
be proud to be even the shadow of the captain, for I tell you what it
is, I don’t believe a finer officer ever stepped the quarter-deck! But
he wont notice me, not for a year at least. It would be beneath him, of
course.”

“Well, I’ll tell you who will notice you, and not think it beneath him,
either, and that is the Great Captain, and you know what he is; all the
hosts of heaven call him glorious. You can study him and study with
him and wear his colors, and get closer to his standard every year, and
not be very much of a prig either.”

“And is that what you call being a Christian? I thought it was all in
drawing down your face and quoting Scripture, and never doing anything
to have a good time.”

“I don’t believe you thought any such thing,” said Aleck, “you have
too much sense for that. A Christian is a follower of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and nothing more or less, except that you can’t very well
follow him without believing in him first and loving him afterwards.”

“Well, a fellow might look at it that way, and not be a milksop, after
all; and I’ve got to get hold of something or other that will carry
me a peg beyond where I was that day we got the professor into such a
rage. It wasn’t the rage I cared for, but I did feel so contemptibly
mean; and an idea came across me that there must be some different rule
a fellow could work by; but I don’t know as I should ever have seen it
any plainer if you hadn’t given me a lift.”

“You’ll want more lifts than I can give you,” said Aleck; “it’s only
the Commander-in-chief that can take raw recruits like us and bring
them up to the ranks; but he’ll never think it beneath him to help the
lowest of us, you may be sure of that.”

A week from that day the Cumbermede weighed anchor, and Carter,
regularly shipped as ordinary seaman, stood on her deck, the desire of
his heart accomplished.

“Good-by, old fellow, I shall take that sermon along!” were his last
words to Aleck; and Aleck, after watching the vessel towed well out
into the stream, turned and made his way back to town, and presented
himself for his own enrolment behind the counter at his Uncle Ralph’s.
He could hardly realize he was there at first; it seemed more like a
joke played off for the day than a life-long decision, and he could not
quite persuade himself that he had set sail for a longer voyage than
Carter’s. But as the day wore on, the earnest way his uncle took of
setting him to work at this and that, and the occasional quiet glance
of pleasure that he cast towards him, began to make him feel that it
was a real thing to one party at least, and would soon become so to the
other.

“I tell you what it is, Nelly,” he said, when business hours were over
at last, and he was at home once more, “I feel as if I had taken a
flying leap somewhere, and hadn’t quite found out what sort of ground
I was going to strike yet. It’s a pretty different thing from old
times, anyhow.”

“And different from what we thought new times were going to be, once,”
said Nelly, looking up half regretfully from her work.

“Well, if you could just get one look at Uncle Ralph’s face, you’d
think the difference was pretty good, and I’m sure papa would too. The
only trouble is, Uncle Ralph hasn’t found out yet what a stupid fellow
he has taken up. I declare I thought my poor head would be turned there
to-day; chemistry and science went clear out of sight, and it was
nothing but weights and measures and compatibilities and all the rest.
But I assure you there’s some pleasure in seeing how the best doctors
in the city hang by Uncle Ralph, Doctor Thorndyke among the rest.”

“Have you been to the doctor’s within a day or two, Aleck?”

“Yes,” said Aleck, with a sudden change of tone.

“No better yet, Aleck?”

“Oh, I suppose so; but it’s a horrid shame to see the way he is. He
never had known a well day in his life till the doctor took hold of
him; but he said there was no reason why he shouldn’t, and he went
to work and did everything that could be thought of for six months or
more, and had just got him where he was finding out what life was--of
course not to be quite as strong as other people, but ready to feel
pretty well and have a good time with the rest of the world; and now
there he is, just able to creep about the house or look at a book now
and then, the old pain ten times worse than ever, and what’s more, the
doctor don’t believe he can ever bring him round to where he was again.
It’s more than he had much hope of at one time to get him through at
all. And that isn’t the worst of it, either; he behaves like a little
man, but I don’t believe he’ll ever forget what happened an hour as
long as he lives.”

“Oh, he _must_ forget it, Aleck. Bring him up here, and see if we can’t
make him.”

“I don’t know,” said Aleck, smiling. “I invited him once, but I don’t
know as I can flatter you by telling you what objection he had.”

“Well, only once persuade him, and I’m sure we can find some way to
make his objections vanish.”




CHAPTER XVI.


A year passed away, and things began to look a good deal clearer to
Aleck; and the farther he went, the more ready he was to confess his
uncle was keeping his promise to show him he could study a profession
behind his counter, as well as he could in a doctor’s office or a
law-school.

“It isn’t so bad, after all, Nelly,” he said now and then as he came
home with a glowing account of some new experiment, “and you may be
proud of me yet as a distinguished chemist, assayer, and what not. If
you’re not, it will only be because you can’t appreciate me.”

The year as it closed brought another graduating-class to their
leave-takings at the professor’s, and this time Hal Fenimore gathered
his laurels, and said farewell with the rest, but with no tears of
regret for the past or the future.

“What a ridiculous little goose Will Carter was,” he said the next day
as he came into Halliday’s for a few minutes’ chat with Aleck; “what a
queer notion that he didn’t like business, and would rather go off and
play middy on that old prison of a ship than enter the counting-house.
I’m going straight in with my uncle, and thankful enough to do it,
and expect to be taken in as partner, and make my fortune before he’s
anything more than second-mate, and it isn’t half the chance there
was at Carter & Co.’s, either. I don’t wonder he didn’t want to go to
college and stuff with Latin and Greek four years more; but to throw
away such a chance as he had at home, to go and put himself under the
thumb of a second-mate, and tar ropes and eat hard-tack for nobody
knows how long before he gets a peg higher!”

Aleck didn’t tell Hal that he himself was stealing every hour he could
get by day and by night to follow up the college course; he only
laughed, and said,

“Well, it might go rather hard with your store if nobody took a fancy
to go to sea; I don’t know where some of your best goods would come
from.”

“That’s a fact,” said Hal; “every one to his taste, and I’m glad
Carter’s got a berth to his fancy, and I hope he’ll make the most of
it.”

Just as Hal left the store, old Joan opened the door of the doctor’s
office and stepped softly in. There was no fire to be brushed up this
time, but she made one pretext after another until she got round in
front of the doctor’s chair, as she always did when she meant to open
a discussion. But this time it seemed as if she could not manage to
begin, and the doctor, guessing at her subject, concluded he must help
her.

“Where’s Thorndyke, Joan?”

That was enough; Joan was fairly launched.

“Hoot, laddie, and where suld the bairnie be, but moping over a book in
some corner or anither o’ the house? It’s little change frae that he
has; and what wi’ his books and the pain, and nae companions to run in
the free sunshine wi’, e’en if he had the strength to do it, we shall
no find we ha’ him wi’ us much longer; either the gude Lord will take
him a’thegither frae our hands, or we shall hae no bairn at a’, but
only a little auld mon, withered and shrunken before his time.”

“And what do you propose to do about it, Joan?”

“What wad I propose to do? Ye ken weel eneugh it’s na proposing or
disposing o’ mine, to say what suld be done wi’ the bairn. It were no
notion o’ mine sending him to the school i’ the first place; but I’m
no sae sure I wadna be more favorable to trying something o’ the kind
once mair, provided sic a place could be found and sic companions as
wouldn’t trample the soul out o’ his body before they had time to see
what it waur made of. But I’m e’en thinking he might hae mair strength
to bear a little rough wind now, and it’s a cruel and unnatural thing
to let a bairn o’ his age ken nae mair o’ life than lies within these
four walls and the covers o’ his book, except indeed when the one
friend he has outside comes to talk a bit wi’ him, or tak him to pass
an hour at his ain house now and then.”

“And you don’t think that’s as much as any reasonable man could ask?”
said the doctor, as a vision of Nelly Halliday, as she stopped one day
with her pony-chaise to leave Thorndyke, as every one called him now,
at the door, rose up before him.

“As muckle as what?” asked Joan, quite in a puzzle. “I dinna
a’thegither understand how muckle it may be, but mercifu’ as it is,
and sent frae the Lord’s pity, it’s no eneugh. It’s no eneugh for ony
bairn to gang frae his book to the front-door all day lang, and never
a step farther into the world, and never feel his blood stirred wi’
ony little brush in life, and always wearing a patient, sorrowfu’ look
that’s eneugh to grieve the hardest heart that could look upon it. Not
that I wad hae the boldness to bring aught before your notice as if ye
couldna see the whole wi’ far better een than mysel’.”

The doctor got up and paced the room a few times after Joan went out,
and when he sat down again, he had come to another decision. Not that
Joan had put any new thoughts into his mind; she had only dropped a
spark upon tinder that he had been gathering together for some months
past, as he watched Thorndyke from week to week. He was no slower to
act upon a decision than a year ago, and in fifteen minutes more the
black horse stood before Halliday’s, and the doctor was having a little
private talk behind the desk.

“I’d like to put him in here,” he was saying, “for I can’t think of any
place where he would do so well. The boy has got brains enough to make
almost anything, and I meant to have made a doctor of him, and one that
would have found high-water mark in his profession before many years;
but that’s all over now. If all I can do for him can give him strength
to get over here two or three times a day and meet his work after he
gets here, it’s the most I can hope for; but we’ll make a man of him
yet, and one we can both be proud of, if you’ll take him after he gets
here and do what you can for him. And I assure you, you shall not be
the loser, if you can manage the matter for me as I wish.”

Mr. Halliday looked thoughtful, but not because he was hesitating as to
his answer. He was thinking of the time when some one, once long ago,
had it in his power to decide for him whether he should be anything or
nothing in the world.

He turned suddenly with a smile,

“You don’t care about sending him before to-morrow,” he said.

“Why, no,” said the doctor, smiling in return. “I don’t know that
to-morrow would not do on the whole.”

“Well, send him to-morrow, then, or any day after, when you and he are
ready, and Aleck here shall teach him what he knows for a while, and
then I’ll take him in hand and see if we can’t make something pretty
nearly as good as a doctor out of him.”

“All right, and thank you,” said the doctor laughing; “I don’t doubt
you’ll get him in advance of some of us, and before so very many years
either.”

So far so good; now for settling the matter with Thorndyke, and he lost
no more time about that than in what had come before.

“See here, little man,” he said, darting one of the old glances in
Thorndyke’s face, as he came in and found him waiting as usual in the
office, and as usual buried in a book, “do you remember my telling you
once on a time, and possibly more than once, that there was a place in
the world for you as well as for the rest of us?”

Thorndyke had started, as he always did, at the first sound of the
doctor’s voice, and met it with the same smile that had troubled him
a year ago, but which he had seen so many times since as to expect
nothing else. But as the sentence was finished he shrank back again.
What could the doctor be going to say? If it were only about a share in
the fight, why that was all right, but anything more! The doctor could
not be mistaken in anything else, but it was of no use talking about
that. He could be a soldier, and he was trying hard for it; but one of
the princes!

“Do you remember, little man?” said the doctor again.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, that’s just as true as it ever was; but there’s another thing,
that I did not say at that time. The only way to make sure of places,
sometimes, is to step into them, and the only way to get our share, is
to reach out and take it. Do you see?”

Thorndyke nodded.

“Well, now, there comes a time to most of us, when we have to do that,
though the change from pleasant old ways makes a rough sort of break
sometimes. For instance, it would go pretty hard with me to miss you
out of the office, but it would not do to keep you here too long, and
I never meant to do it. I meant to make a doctor of you after awhile,
but I’m afraid that isn’t going to do, as things are. Doctors have a
pretty hard time now and then, and as long as that pain holds on, I’m
afraid it wouldn’t do. But what would you say to just going round the
corner to Halliday’s once or twice a day, and trying whether you or
your friend Aleck there can do most toward keeping up the credit of the
firm? How do you think that would do?”

A soldier! Thorndyke had meant to be one, and thought he had won some
battles, and vanquished some foes for ever, but here the whole thing
seemed to be rising up again, stronger than ever, and the soldier
thrown to the ground in a moment.

He dropped his book on the table, and hid his face in it for a moment;
then he looked suddenly up.

“Oh, I cannot,” he cried; “I never, never can! Why do you ask me such a
thing? To stand there all day long and have people come in every minute
to say, ‘Look at Humpy!’ Oh, it would be too much! I don’t believe even
the King would ever think I could do it.”

A whole year, and that wound no nearer healing than it was at first!
Not even the words forgotten! Then might not the doctor as well give up
all hope that they ever would be! and all hope of everything else but
making life a little easier from day to day! The pain would be there,
in the heart as well as in the back, for life, he feared.

It was lucky for Carter and Hal Fenimore that he had nothing to say
to them at that instant, but he stopped before Thorndyke’s chair, and
lifting the white face that had dropped upon the book again, held it
gently in his hands.

“You cannot let people see the form the King has seen fit to give you,
when you can show them at the same time that he has given you a soul
and a brain worthy of any of his princes? Is it hard to choose between
hiding away here like some poor frightened thing, and stepping out
where you can find every hour filled with work any man might be proud
of, and make yourself known and valued all over the city by-and-by?
What should you say if the day were to come when I thought I could not
be satisfied with any prescription that you should not put up? Wouldn’t
that be almost as good as having you for a partner, as I might if you
were stronger?

“And even if you can’t get over feeling that this costs you a good
deal, can’t you remember that when the Prince Royal was here, his
visage was more marred than any man’s, and yet he let every one look at
it? And if he has a work for you now, and a place where you can gather
up a great share of what is worth having in life, can’t you take it up
for his sake, and for my sake, if not for you own?”

The blue veins were swelling again, and the old throbbing at the heart
coming back in full force; but he would not forget that he was a
soldier! And yet even a soldier might beg for a truce!

“Oh, wait, please,” he cried, “only wait till to-morrow!”

“Of course we will wait,” said the doctor, “and as long as you like;
and in the meantime we will eat our dinner, and after that, suppose we
have a drive together? Not so far as to meddle with the pain, but I
think we might get a breath of what lies outside the city for once in a
way.”

The battle lasted well into the night, in spite of the drive behind
Jet, and everything the doctor could think of to make it seem as if
there were no such thing as fighting in the world. But though Thorndyke
had begged for a truce, he was determined not to go to sleep till the
enemy was put to rout again, and it seemed at one time as if it were
going to take the whole night to do it. He lay with his eyes wide open,
the moon shining into the little room that had seemed so wonderful when
it was first given him, but only a mockery so many times since; and
the forms of all the terrible things he should have to meet if he did
as the doctor wished stalked about it like evil spirits of the night.
The fight had been sharp enough when he determined to open the door for
patients again, and the first time he went home with Aleck it seemed
as if he should die; but opening the door was for the doctor, and he
had got accustomed to it now; and Nellie Halliday never seemed to see
anything but his face, and had taken it in her slender white hands one
day and asked him if he knew it was a wonderful gift of Heaven; he
could not tell what she meant, but he had never been afraid to let her
see him since then.

But Halliday’s! There would be hundreds of people coming in all day
long, and he himself would be standing behind the counter scarcely
able to look over it, and every one looking down upon him to see how
strangely he was made! And then going through the street so many times
every day! Going on errands here and there, very likely, and letting
every one wonder where Halliday had found such a strange little
creature to do his work! He could bear the pain, he could bear knowing
that he was never to learn the games of the boys, and to go about with
them as the doctor had thought he should, he could bear never feeling
that he was one of the princes again, but he could not bear this!

He shut his eyes, but there it all was, just the same; what could he
do? The ugly forms would not be beaten down, and yet he must not give
it up!

But at last, a different thought rose up, that seemed to make them
shrink away, and he felt himself gaining a little once more! There were
the Prince Royal and the doctor! If they wished it, and it would please
_them_, why should he care for anything else! If he could only once
determine that he did not care! No, he never could do that, but if he
could only be so happy in pleasing them as to trample all the pain that
might come from anywhere else under his feet! And after all, would it
not be a great thing to have a business, a profession of his own, and
know so much that he could be really of some use as well as if he were
like other people, instead of “hiding away all his life,” as the doctor
called it? And perhaps other people _might_ come to respect him for
what he knew and could do, some day! Oh, he could see it all now! Why
had he not seen it before, and how could he ever thank the doctor for
seeing it for him? He would do it; he would be ready any day!

The battle was won, and the tired soldier turned on his pillow to go to
sleep, with something nearer the old joyous thrill in his veins than he
had thought he could ever feel again.




CHAPTER XVII.


So it was decided, and when Thorndyke had once decided, he was ready,
and an early day was fixed for his first morning at Halliday’s before
the week was past.

“Why, hallo, old fellow, if this isn’t about the jolliest go! We’ll
have the old store all in the family yet!” was Aleck’s greeting, so
joyous that it didn’t stop to be elegant; and a “jolly go” it was, as
far as he could possibly help to make it so. Thorndyke could never make
a mistake, in his view; and as to teaching him, that was only letting
him see once how a thing must be done, and he knew it as well as his
teacher. As for Thorndyke, he always felt that the sun shone, and
everything was right, as soon as Aleck came in. All went on as gayly as
it could, and by the time a year had passed, nobody thought the store
was quite right if Thorndyke was absent for a day. Mr. Halliday missed
something, he could not tell what; the customers wanted to know what
had become of “the little fellow;” and Aleck felt as if he were in
imminent peril of some catastrophe, for, paragon as Thorndyke thought
him, he had his one fault, which horrified Uncle Ralph, and humiliated
himself: he _did_ now and then forget something very important to
be remembered, and Thorndyke had not been long in the store before
he established himself as guardian over this possibility, and had
already saved Aleck half a dozen times when just “on the brink” of some
predicament or other.

But the absences came very seldom, only here and there when the pain
was too bad for a day, and then he was back again: sometimes so out of
sight that only a little rustling told he was there; sometimes just
coming into view above a showcase, and sometimes, again, mounting a
little step which had been run along for him just inside the counter,
and which brought him high enough to wait upon customers conveniently.
It made every one start at first to see those great, brilliant eyes,
the high, white forehead, and the delicate features, looking over at
them, when they could scarcely see what they belonged to. And every
one that knew much of such things could read in the wistful eyes
and patient smile a good deal of what had come into them after that
dreadful day a year ago, with still a little change. The pain was
still there; he knew he should never be like other people, but he was
bearing it as a brave soldier should, and he was glad other people were
not like him, and he should learn to be useful to them, yet.

So another year went on, and another examination-day was coming at the
professor’s, and Tom Haggarty came in the day before to talk about
it with Aleck, though Aleck had taken good care to hush him up when
Thorndyke came within hearing.

“It’s just as well not to say anything about that before Thorndyke,” he
said; “it isn’t likely to bring very pleasant reminiscences to him!”

“That’s a fact,” said Tom; “I shouldn’t think he’d ever want to hear of
the school again as long as he lives; and it’s a horrid shame, too, and
always will be; and I always feel as if I had something to do with it,
though I never could tell how. But wont you come down? We shall have a
high old time, and it’s the last but one for me. You know I’m through
next year.”

“You’ve done well,” said Aleck. “You’re a little shaver to be fitted
for college.”

“Little’s nothing,” said Tom. “I was thirteen last fall, and I shall be
almost fifteen when I step off. It has seemed for ever and a day to me
since I first saw the professor.”

“But that’s too young; you wont think of entering right away, will you?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I may have to wait a bit, but I sha’n’t know
how to; if it only wasn’t for being a freshman, and the hazing, and all
that. I don’t see how a fellow is ever to get through with that part
of it, but I suppose I’ve got to be hazed wherever I go. If I can live
through it, ’twill be better than to be shut up in a store all my life.
I don’t see how you make it go, with such a smooth face.”

“Don’t you?” said Aleck, laughing; “come and try it a while, and
perhaps you’ll see.”

“No, thank you,” said Tom, “I should hate it so that they would turn me
off in a very short time. It’s hard enough to make a fellow’s way in
the world if you let him take the way he likes best, and I’m thankful
enough I’ve got the promise ahead for all the study I can do for the
next eight or ten years. I shall have to strike out for myself then,
and it will be tough enough, I suppose, but I don’t mean to worry
myself about that till the time comes. Come down to-morrow, wont you?”

Tom went off, and Aleck soon followed towards home, for it was his
hour to go to tea. He walked quickly, for he begrudged every moment
lost on the way, and was soon near the house, with some thoughts
running on that came up once in a while, and which went to make up the
only secret ever kept between himself and Nelly. Tom was right about
business. To be sure, his own came nearer to being professional than
almost anything, and there was some comfort in helping to save people’s
lives, if he did only come in as second fiddler. But his dream of a
profession! Neither Uncle Ralph nor Nelly should ever have a suspicion
of the sacrifice he was making. Why should they? If there didn’t happen
to be money enough for him to study on, it was no fault of theirs; and
if Uncle Ralph could take any pleasure in having him in the store, why,
he need not think the favor was all on that side; he had something to
be thankful for himself.

But what was that sound behind him? A horse’s hoofs flying wildly up
the pavement, and wheels swaying from one side to the other of the
street! He turned, and one glance was enough to show him what was
happening, and that he had better look out for himself while there was
time. It was Tom Haggarty’s father and the horse he was accustomed to
drive quietly past on his way home every night; but in some way the
animal had become terrified and altogether beyond his control, and
was dashing wildly up the road, and aiming now directly for the spot
where Aleck stood. Aleck had just time to spring aside and mount his
doorstep with a flying leap when the wheels struck the curbstone, the
horse’s hoofs clattered on the sidewalk, there was a crash, a plunge,
an overthrow, and in another moment the horse had cleared himself from
the carriage, and was dashing madly on, while his owner lay senseless
on the pavement.

In an instant a group had gathered about the fallen man, but Aleck was
first among them, raising his head and searching hastily for his pulse.

“All right so far,” he said; “he’s breathing yet, but--” and he glanced
quickly towards the window. Nelly was standing there, and answered the
look with a beckoning signal.

“Lend a hand here, will you?” said Aleck; “we’ll get him inside and
then see what’s to be done next.”

They lifted him, hardly believing Aleck that he was still alive, and
carrying him in, laid him on the sofa to which Nelly pointed.

“Is he alive, Aleck?”

“Yes, his pulse is beating.”

“Then a doctor, and the nearest one. Remember what a friend he was to
papa!”

“Not so much the nearest one, as the best one,” thought Aleck as he
sped away. “I’ll have Dr. Thorndyke here, if he can be found, and I
think it’s just the time Jet is most likely to be standing at the door.”

Yes, there was Jet, the reins thrown over his back, and still panting
after his dash into town from a visit a mile outside; the doctor had
just closed the front-door behind him, and it took but a moment for
Aleck to find him and tell his errand.

For the first time in his life there was a moment when the doctor
didn’t care a fig about what was wanted, compared to some other
considerations. He should see Nelly Halliday in her own house at last,
after all this time that Thorndyke had been having it all to himself,
without the slightest appreciation of what it was!

But only an instant; at the next he and Aleck were in the chaise, and
one more brought them to where the shattered carriage still lay before
the door.

“Isn’t that enough to bring a dead man to life!” thought the doctor
as he stepped into the room. There was the same face he had seen two
years ago smiling from the conservatory-window at Thorndyke, the same
soft eyes, the same rippling sunlight in her hair, just as he had
remembered them all this while, only this time bending over the still
motionless form of her fathers friend, and watching anxiously for some
sign of returning consciousness.

But there was no time for ceremony.

“Here is Dr. Thorndyke, Nelly,” said Aleck, and with a quick smile of
recognition she stepped aside and let the doctor come close to his
patient.

“Ah! Possibly _she_ recollects, too!” thought the doctor. “But pshaw!
there’s nothing to be thought of just here but this poor fellow,” and
he plunged into the examination of his patient.

Not a word was spoken for a few moments, except as the doctor asked for
what he wanted.

“A wine-glass, please,” and Nelly handed it to him with a quick,
noiseless movement.

But when he had given the restorative and was waiting a moment for its
effect, she spoke,

“Is it so very bad, doctor? Oh, I hope you can say it is not!”

“It is pretty bad, I am afraid. If we cannot succeed in improving
things in a few moments, I think Aleck had better call a carriage and
get him home as soon as possible. This has been something of a shock to
you already, Miss Halliday.”

The remedies seemed of no avail; only a low, heavy breathing and
flitting pulse told there was any life remaining, and at a sign from
the doctor Aleck disappeared. It was but a few moments until he
returned with the carriage, but it seemed hours to Nelly as she watched
the doctor trying one remedy after another, and all equally in vain.
The doctor did not tell her he was almost sure it would be so before
he began; he went on as quietly as if there were more hope, with a few
cheerful words now and then, and at last Aleck came with the carriage.

“You have been very kind, doctor,” she said, when Mr. Haggarty was
placed inside the carriage and the doctor was preparing to go with him.
“I take it almost as if it were done for papa, they were such friends.
You’ll come again, will you not, some brighter day, and let us thank
you?”

The doctor answered with one of those quick looks in her face which
Thorndyke knew so well.

“_Some_ one ought to come very soon and see how you are,” he said.
“This has been rather trying for you, Miss Halliday.”




CHAPTER XVIII.


Poor Tom! It was a dark to-morrow to which he had invited Aleck, and
darker still the days that followed, that he had thought would be full
of holiday enjoyment! Could it be true that his father was gone? Gone!
What did that mean! Oh, if it only were not true! If every one were
mistaken, or had told him false!

It seemed to him he could never see the boys again. But Aleck would not
leave him to that very long, and Tom really felt the first touch of
comfort when he heard him asking for him at the door.

“Oh, but you don’t know anything about it, Aleck; you don’t understand!
No one can understand, until it come, how terrible it seems.”

“And isn’t that the very way I _can_ understand?”

Tom stared at him with wide eyes a moment.

“Oh, I forgot! How could I forget! It was horrid in me, but it seems
as if I could not remember anything or know anything except this one
terrible feeling that is everywhere through the house. And it doesn’t
seem as if it could ever be any better!”

“It _will_ be better,” said Aleck, but Tom only shook his head. “Don’t
you suppose it was just as terrible in the houses that the Lord Jesus
came into long ago, because there was trouble in them?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom, hesitating a little, for he was not used to
talking of such things, and didn’t know exactly where he was; “but he
came to bring people back to life, then, and he doesn’t do that now.”

“No, he doesn’t, but he comes just as close and just as much to bring
comfort as he did then. Suppose he should come so close and speak so
tenderly that you could almost feel his heart beating against yours,
wouldn’t that make it better? And if he should promise he would never
go away, but would watch you even more faithfully than your father
could, and help you along to make the man he hoped to see you, wouldn’t
that make it better?”

“Perhaps so,” said Tom, not very clear yet that all this amounted to
anything more than talking.

“I tell you there’s no mistake,” said Aleck. “There are just two or
three things, it seems to me, that we have got to have before we can be
happy, taking us just as we are; we want some one to love and some one
to love us; we want something to do that’s worth doing, and we want our
own affairs to be looked out for at the same time.”

“But I’ve got to look out for myself, now,” said poor Tom.

“I know it, Tom, and yet you haven’t, after all. If your father had
been here when you went to college, didn’t you expect to send to him
when you needed anything, or when you didn’t see just what ’twas best
to do about anything? And wouldn’t that have left you free to go right
along with your work, and interest yourself for other people, instead
of all the time worrying about yourself? And can’t you do just the same
with the Lord?”

“But I loved him so! I miss him so!” cried poor little Tom, breaking
down altogether.

“I know; that comes hard, and there’s no getting away from it; but I
tell you, Tom, it isn’t going to be such a very great while, and I
don’t believe he’s so very far off either. It may be there’s only a
veil between, and who knows but he can see through it as plainly as
if wasn’t there at all? And you’ll find lots to do; that’s one of the
greatest things after all. Just think what you can come to be in taking
his place at home, besides something for somebody outside, every day
of your life, if you’re only looking out for it. And there’s no one to
say he wont see it; and however that may be, there’s One that will be
sure to, and think a good deal of it too.”

Tom didn’t say much, but he had his own times of going over in his mind
all Aleck had said, until things did begin to seem a little better
after a while, as Aleck had promised, and going back to school did not
seem so very terrible as he had thought; and as the year came once more
to a close, the thought of the new step into college studies really
looked bright and tempting.

All but the freshman woes, in the way of hazing and all that sort of
thing. Poor Tom hadn’t yet got over his dread of being snubbed or run
upon, only as he had been in the higher class the last year, and there
was no one left in the school who was quite so endlessly doing it since
Hal had left. He had almost forgotten how uncomfortable it was; at any
rate, he was sure he never could see any worse times than some he had
had with Hal, and he had lived through those somehow.

So he was making the most of his holidays, and the little interval of
deciding what came next; and going into Halliday’s now and then, for a
few moments with Aleck and Thorndyke, was one of the great resources
of the time.

He came gayly out one day, to see some one beckoning to him, and
reining in his horse close by. Ah, that was Mr. Willoughby, his
guardian, and Tom ran to the chaise.

“Going towards home, Haggarty?” he said. “Suppose you jump in, and we
drive out together. I want to talk to you about one or two matters, if
you’re not aiming in another direction.”

Tom sprang in, only too gladly. He should hear something about going to
college, he was sure.

“Well, and how does it seem to be a free man once more?” he asked, as
Tom took his seat and they started off.

“Prime,” said Tom, “only if a free man never has anything to do, I
shouldn’t like it to last very long.”

“Good,” said Mr. Willoughby, laughing, “and that’s just the very point.
How long should you call long enough?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I suppose I ought to enter college this
Commencement, if I’m going at all this year; and if I wait till next, I
ought to be studying or working at something before a great while.”

“And you are sure of going this year or next? Could you not think of
anything but college and be satisfied?”

Tom started.

“My father wished me to go to college.”

“I know he did; but, Tom, he is not here now to send you. You have been
a brave fellow this last year, and I know you will be brave about what
I have to tell you. I have said nothing about money-matters so far, for
I wished you to get through school with a quiet mind; but perhaps it
is best now to let you understand just how things are. There were some
embarrassments in your father’s affairs that he could have overcome if
he had lived a year or two longer, but as things were left, they have
made a great deal of trouble; and in fact, there does not seem to be
the means of carrying out his plans for you. I’m afraid you’ll have to
go to work, my boy, without waiting for college or Germany or anything
of the kind; and the sooner you can make a man of yourself and get a
start in the world, the better it will be for the rest at home.”

Tom took hold of the side of the chaise; it seemed to him that the
whole of life had been knocked out from under his feet.

“I can’t think you’ll find business so very bad,” went on Mr.
Willoughby, “and I think you’ve got the making of a good business man
in you; all you want is a fair chance, and a good send off, to begin
with, and that I think I’ve found for you, by good luck. I’ve been
making some proposals to the Fenimores, and they are ready to take you
in there, and see what you can do for yourself, as soon as you can make
up your mind that you’re ready. It isn’t every day that a chance like
that opens to a boy of your age, and I rather think you’ll decide to
make the most of it.”

Poor Tom! If what Aleck had said to him that day had been a comfort
before, he needed to get closer hold of it yet this time.

“You’ll find lots to do, Tom, and that is one of the greatest things,
after all; and there’s One that will be sure to see, and think a good
deal of it, too.”

He kept saying it over to himself, and the rest of what Aleck had said
about “some one caring for him, while he went about his work for other
people.” And he needed it all; “pretty tough,” Aleck called the sudden
change in his prospects, when he heard of it, but even then he hadn’t
the least idea how Tom dreaded coming so directly in Hal’s way as he
knew he should, every day. That seemed to be the last and bitterest
drop in the cup! Not that Hal wasn’t a good fellow; he knew he was,
and that he would do him many a kind turn before the year was out,
but--pshaw! he must get over being such a goose!




CHAPTER XIX.


Thorndyke had left the store just as Mr. Willoughby picked Tom up; he
never stayed in the evening and it was six o’clock now. But he had an
errand to do that took him past the little cottage with the bay window,
and there stood Jet and the doctor’s chaise. And the doctor himself
came out of the door, just as he came in sight again on his way back.

“Stand still, Jet!” said the doctor, and Jet pawed the ground till
Thorndyke came up. The doctor reached him a hand, he climbed in, and
Jet’s hoofs struck sparks again as he carried them towards home. The
doctor scarcely spoke, but there was a shining in his eyes that made
Thorndyke feel he could say a good deal if he chose; indeed he had seen
it there every day of late; he wondered if anything had happened!

But when he came into the office, he was sitting as quietly over a
medical review as if nothing had ever happened, or would ever happen,
and Thorndyke took his own book and his own seat in the window. But
it did not last long; Thorndyke heard a flutter and a fall, and the
doctor had sent the magazine flying.

“Come over here, Thorndyke,” he said; “I want to say something to you.”

Thorndyke started, but before he had got halfway, the doctor met him,
and stood there with his hands on his shoulders, and looking full into
his eyes with the shining out of his own brighter than ever.

“Little man,” he said, “if I told you you had been the means of
bringing to me the greatest gift of my life, what would you say?”

For an instant Thorndyke stood as much astonished as on the day when
the doctor first talked to him about fishing and going to school.

“I never gave you anything,” he said; “you give me everything, and it
makes me feel happy and strong even to know that you are near; but I
never gave you anything. What do I ever have to give?”

“Tut,” said the doctor stooping a little and looking closer into his
face with the old smile, “don’t you know you are all I have in the
world; all I _have had_, rather. Did you ever see my chaise standing
where it did to-night, before?”

“Yes,” said Thorndyke, “and I supposed something was the matter, but I
did not ask of course.”

The doctor laughed, and letting go his hold of Thorndyke, walked back
and forth across the room.

“Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, after a while, “did it ever occur
to you that you and I had lived here like two miserable old bachelors,
almost long enough? And if there was any one on the face of the earth
that could come here and take this old world of ours and make a new one
of it that would seem a good deal like Paradise, who should you say it
would be?”

A sudden thought swept over Thorndyke’s mind, though it seemed only a
dream.

“The princess!” he exclaimed; “but--”

“Ah, you think that would be like plucking the morning star down from
over our own heads? And so it is, more like that than anything I ever
thought I should dare try, much less have success granted me, if I did;
but she _is_ coming, little man! The King has given her to me! But I
should never have seen her, much less known her, a thousand times less
asked for her, if _you_ had not found her for me!”

“Well, if this isn’t about the most magnificent thing that ever
happened!” said Aleck the next day, when a sharp look into Thorndyke’s
face told him he knew all; “The doctor is the only man I know in the
world fit to loosen the latchet of Nellie’s shoe, but I don’t believe
there’s another woman fit to do the same for him, and I shall be the
proudest fellow in the city when I can call him brother. Except you,
Thorndyke! He is a heap more yours than he ever will be mine, no matter
what he calls me, and I always thought you were the luckiest fellow in
the world to have a claim on him; but I never thought I should ever
come in for any share! But what will become of me, when I’m left alone
in my glory?”

This was a question that came into Nellie’s mind also, and she had her
own plans to meet it. When October was turning all the world to garnet
and gold once more, then came the wedding, and Thorndyke was there
with the rest. No pain of any kind could have kept him away; the old
throbbing at his heart rose up, until he could hardly breathe, and when
the bride, with all her beauty and her loveliness, her orange blossoms
and the veil that seemed to Thorndyke like a halo around her golden
hair, stooped and gave him his kiss, he didn’t know whether he were in
the world or not! Only let him get out of sight once more! He slipped
away into a sheltered spot and Uncle Ralph stepped into his place.

“Uncle Ralph,” said Nelly, when almost all the guests were gone. “I
know you cannot find it in your heart to refuse me anything on my
wedding-day. I want to leave the house just as it is for Aleck, but of
course he cannot stay in it alone. Wont you say goodby to your hotel
room, and come and fill my place here until either you or he follow in
my footsteps?”

Uncle Ralph pooh-poohed for a while, but he couldn’t find it in his
heart, as Nelly said, to refuse her; and before the wedding journey
was over, bachelor’s hall was thoroughly established behind the
conservatory window.




CHAPTER XX.


The Cumbermede had made a long list of successful voyages since Aleck
watched her out of sight and waved his farewell to Carter, and she was
homeward bound once more, with a full cargo and a quick run so far,
before the trade-winds. The moonlight lay soft and clear across the
deck, the phosphorus flashed like monster diamonds in her track, and
not a sound was heard but the low plashing at the bow, as the vessel
made her seven knots, steady before a light breeze. But now the wind
freshened, and the second mate’s voice was heard giving sharp quick
orders to two of his watch.

“Go aloft there, and close up the main-top-gallant.”

The men sprang to the rigging, and a few moments more one of them
came down the ratlines and went forward to some work he had left, but
the other seemed to find some delay in accomplishing his share of the
task. The mate glanced impatiently into the rigging once or twice, then
angrily, and then shouted aloft:

“What are you about up there, you landlubber Jake? If I had a _dog_
and he didn’t know more than you do, I’d shoot him.”

The man halfway down by this time, finished his descent and passed the
mate without a word, but a dark scowl covered his face. The mate caught
sight of it and his fury increased; he seized the man by the collar and
pushed him violently toward the wheel.

“There, go and try your hand at that,” he said, “and see if you can
keep a decent face before your betters! A miserable fool that never saw
three months’ service since he was born, shipping as able seaman, and
then grumbling about under his officers’ feet till it’s enough to drive
them mad! If the next wave should take you overboard ’twould be the
best thing that could happen!”

The sailor recovered his balance and went off to relieve the man at the
wheel, but the scowl grew darker, and harder lines gathered about his
mouth. Eight bells sounded at last, and the first mate’s watch came
tumbling up from their berths, to relieve those on duty. But it was too
warm to go below, and after loitering a few moments till the second
mate had disappeared to turn in, two or three of the men sauntered
forward, the dark scowl among them, and getting noiselessly together
in the shadow of the foremast, began to talk in low undertones, that
could not reach far aft of their position.

“I tell you, I wont bear it any longer,” said Jake between his teeth.
“One or other of us has got to go under, and that before another
twenty-four hours is past.”

The man next him gave a low laugh, and then seeing how black the
other’s face was, grew sober again.

“Pshaw, Jake, you look as if you were in earnest. I should think you
were a landlubber, as the mate says, if you’re going to take notice of
anything an officer says to a hand! If he’d shoot his dog for what you
did, it’s only a wonder he didn’t knock you overboard. A sailor don’t
count for as much as a dog any day.”

“He knows I’ve only had my hand out of the sling for two days, and how
was I going to handle the earrings,” muttered Jake; “I tell you I mean
what I say. If I can get two or three to stand by me, well and good,
and if not I’ll tackle him alone. I’d as lief jump overboard with him,
as lead this life any longer.”

“Jake’s about right,” growled the other sailor, under his breath;
“’twould be as good a day’s work as I ever did to stand by Jake and
see the second mate get his dues.”

“Humph! and do you know what they call that? That’s mutiny, in plain
English, and we should have the other officers with their pistols out,
and if we didn’t get a little cold lead for our pains, we should find
out how bread and water tasted in the hold for a few weeks.”

“Who cares for that?” said Jake. “Let ’em come on, if they want to!
They wouldn’t shoot down three or four of us; and if they should try
it, we might get some new recruits on our side, and see which of us
could take the ship into port. If I was a dog when I came aboard, he’s
made a devil of me since, and he may look sharp that I don’t carry him
where I belong, with me.”

“You wouldn’t get any of the first mate’s watch to stand by you, if the
worst comes to the worst,” said the growling sailor; “a man’s got to do
his duty with him, but when he’s done it he treats him as if he had a
soul in him, after all.”

“That’s a fact; Carter’s the only officer I ever saw that could get
duty out of a watch and never speak an ugly word to them,” said the
other; “he don’t seem to like it. But he’s sharp as a gun to the mark,
at the same time, where any other man would get tipped over for it.”

“I’d be sorry to go against _him_” said Jake, “and so I hope he’ll
let me alone, that’s all; for I’ve got where nothing will stop me. If
you’ll give me your hand on it, shipmates, we’ll set sail together,
and if we drop anchor in a worse port, it wont be till I’ve had some
satisfaction, anyhow.”

“I don’t say but I’m ready,” said the growling sailor; “we shall find
we’ve raised a lively gale of wind, but I don’t much care where it
blows me. I’ve made as many voyages as any man aboard, and been kicked
and cursed my share; but when it comes to crowding a man every hour and
minute of a day, what do you say, Jim?”

“I say I don’t like to stand to windward of a shipmate,” said Jim, “but
it will be a bad business, and we’re homeward bound. You’d better speak
to Ratlins, anyhow, and see what he says. He’s gone below.”

“And that’s where we’d better go,” said the growling sailor, “or the
birds of the air will be getting their eye on us before we’re ready.”

Carter had taken part of his watch below, late as it was, to finish
up some ship’s writing, and his stateroom being close by the
companion-way, he had heard what passed between the second officer and
Jake.

“Pshaw!” he said to himself, fidgeting in his chair, “what’s the use of
that, Penfield? If a man’s rough enough to need that, you can’t hope
to make anything of him; and if he isn’t, it hurts. A man’s got some
feeling, whatever shape he’s in,” and a vision of a crooked little
form, fleeing away like the wind, rose up before him, as it always had,
from that miserable time at the professor’s to this very day, whenever
he heard any one use taunting or cutting words.

He went on with his writing, but the second mate’s words seemed to echo
in his ears.

“I wish Penfield wouldn’t be such a bear,” he said again as he put
aside his book to turn in at last for a nap before his watch was
called; “it don’t do to show a soft side with a man, to be sure, and
I know he’s got some rough fellows in his watch; but he’s got two or
three that started as fair as most men, and he’ll make beasts of them
all if he goes on this way. I haven’t heard him speak to a man of them
since he came aboard but as if hanging was too good for him.”

Carter’s nap was sound enough to make up for its shortness, and he
paced the quarter-deck all right and fresh for the four hours before
him as the second mate went below.

“’Tisn’t a bad idea that every wave we cut brings us so much nearer
home,” he said as he watched the foam flying back over the bow. “‘A
life on the ocean wave!’ that’s the only thing, to be sure; but, after
all, it’s always certain the roughest hand aboard is counting how many
days we’ve made on the home-run. Well, I’ll be glad to see it, for one.”

His thoughts made the trip before the sentence was finished, and
brought up where they were very apt to do, in a place he always started
for before he had been half a day ashore--Halliday’s.

“What a number-one fellow that Aleck is,” he went on, “and I owe him
for some things I never should have seen if he hadn’t showed them to
me,” and for the thousandth time some of Aleck’s words came up to his
mind.

“The only way is to remember how the Lord has treated us, and the way
he has taught us, to love our neighbor as ourselves.

“And that’s something I wish we officers remembered a little oftener;
to be sure they say you can’t treat a sailor like a man, and keep him
where he ought to be. But Penfield is too much of a Tartar, and he’s
got one fellow there that it don’t do any good to, and he don’t see the
difference. Some of them will take anything; but this Jake, though he
seemed fair enough when he shipped, is getting blacker every day, and
the ship that takes him next voyage will find him more so, I’m afraid.
I wonder what those fellows are talking about, forward there; they
ought to be below, but I’ll manage not to see them, if they don’t stay
too long.”

They glided down, one after the other, as he spoke, and a moment after
Jake was at Ratlins’ bunk and rousing him cautiously from a rather
sonorous dream. “Hush!” he said, “there’s no need of saying anything
just yet;” and leaning closer to him, he whispered the substance of
what had been said at the foremast in his ear.

Ratlins raised himself on his elbow and swore a bitter oath.

“How did you know that was the very thing I was dreaming of? But what’s
the use? A sailor is only made to be kicked like a dog, anyhow, and if
one mate kicks harder than another, why that’s all it is, and we’re
homeward-bound, you know.”

“Homeward-bound,” muttered Jake; “_he’s_ homeward-bound if I get hold
of him, for I’ve got murder in my heart, and it’s his own lookout, for
he put it there! I’ve got a mother at home that’s done praying enough
for me to bring a worse ship into port, but she may as well give it
up about this time. I tell you, Penfield is going overboard before
his second dog-watch is over, unless I can get three or four of you
to lend me a hand and help me settle him in some way that he’ll know
more about, and wont leave a mark on me that _she’d_ feel quite so much
aground about, if she knew it. What do you say? Ned and Jim are pretty
much agreed.”

“Oh, luff a little, shipmate,” said Ratlins, “and let a fellow sleep on
it, anyhow. I’ll stand by you somehow, for he deserves it; but I reckon
you’ll ease off a little by morning, if you don’t lay to altogether.”

“Not I,” said Jake; “but give me your hand on doing _something_.”

Ratlins gave him his hand, and Jake went to his bunk to nurse his
revenge and lay plans for what should be done in case the men would
agree to unite.

“But if they _don’t_,” he muttered, “’t wont save the mate. When a
worm does turn, it’s sure to sting, and he’ll never go through another
midnight-watch safe with me!”

The breeze died down again, and the watch was a lazy one, and Carter’s
thoughts, after making voyages round the world, came back to Jake again.

“Now I suppose a fellow like that is my neighbor,” he said, “let
sailors be what they will. God put a soul in him once, anyhow, and
I can’t believe it’s altogether dead yet. Of course it isn’t, or he
wouldn’t care for Penfield until it came to breaking his head with
a marlingspike, or something of that kind. I’ve got a fellow in my
watch that couldn’t feel anything less than that, but it isn’t so with
Jake. I wonder if I could manage to give him a lift. Who knows but
there’s somebody watching for him at home, that doesn’t want to see him
spoiled? At any rate, there’s One watching above, that laid down his
life for him as well as the rest of us, and it’s a pity to see a fellow
so tormented, if nothing worse should come of it.”

Penfield’s dog-watch came, the men did their duty, and then went
forward for breakfast. Jake’s face had lost none of its darkness with
the sunrising, but was harder and more threatening than ever.

“Well, shipmate,” whispered Ratlins, as they sat down, each with his
tin-dipper of coffee, his allowance of duff and ship’s biscuit, “how
many knots is she making this morning? The breeze has gone down a
little, hasn’t it, by daylight?”

“No, it hasn’t,” said Jake; “and remember you gave me your hand on it,
last night, to stand by.”

“So I did,” said Ratlins, “and my two hours on the dog-watch this
morning has given me more of a relish for it; but still--”

“No hanging fire,” said Jake. “Ned and Jim, where are you? If you’re
bound another way, I can cruise alone, and if I go down, it wont be
without carrying some one else with me.”

“Who said you were to cruise alone?” said the growling sailor, breaking
a biscuit on his knee; “I guess we can fix something before to-night,”
and the whispering grew lower and thicker, until even Jake seemed
satisfied.

When seven bells struck that noon, Carter came on deck, and seemed to
be loafing about for the half-hour before his watch came on, but in the
course of it he managed to come across the second mate, where a few
words could pass between them unobserved.

“Look here, Penfield,” he said, “I want to make a little change in the
watch if it’s all the same to you. That long-limbed fellow there, Jake,
I’ve taken a notion to try my hand on him, and I’ve got a fellow among
mine that don’t work in so well with the rest. I’ll let you try what
you can make of him, and you turn Jake over to me.”

The mate stared; a queer sort of proceeding, he thought, and wouldn’t
be called ship-shape on some vessels, but he knew Carter owned in the
Cumbermede, and he supposed he could do as he liked.

“Taken a notion to Jake,” he said, suppressing the oath that rose to
his lips, out of respect to his superior officer, “I should as soon
think of taking a notion to one of the imps below. You’re welcome to
him if you want him; I’m sure I don’t care if he goes to the bottom. A
miserable dog, for ever under foot, and taking more swearing to get a
little duty out of him, than any three men on board.”

“Well, I’ll try him,” said Carter; “you let him know, and I’ll send
Dave over to you.”

Jake stood in the broiling sun, scraping the paint from the house--ugly
work in the heat, and a hideous noise, but no vessel ever stood into
port in more perfect trim than the Cumbermede, and this voyage every
particle of the old paint must be removed from aft, and she was to
shine brighter than ever in new. He did not stir as he heard the mate
approach, but he watched him with eye and ear from under his broad
hat. The mate stopped beside him, and Jake set his teeth, with the
thought that whatever came, it was one of the last times.

“You go over to the first mate’s watch to-night, and much joy may he
have of you,” was all he said, and passed along.

Jake started, and the knife almost fell from his hands. Were they
suspected? Discovered? What did it mean?

But he went on with his work, as if the mate had only spoken to a
statue. Penfield passed back and forth, but Jake did not dare lift his
eyes to read his face. At any rate, he had the rest of the day for a
lookout; it would be his watch below soon, and he could consult with
the others.

“Now I tell you, shipmates, that’s a lucky thing all round,” said
Ratlins. “Maybe they’ve got a scent on the wind; I don’t know, but
it don’t look to me much like foul weather, and if they’re only
wind-clouds, why then we’re all out of a bad business easy; and what do
you care what the second-mate is to us, Jake, so long as he keeps out
of your wake?”

“But I wont keep out of his,” said Jake. “Do you think I’ll let go as
easy as that?”

“Easy,” said Ned. “You may as well reef topsails and scud before the
wind a day or two, anyhow, till you see how she trims. We sha’n’t be
out more than three weeks now, and there’s no great fun going into port
down in the hold, with iron bracelets on.”

“What’s that got to do with paying off scores?” said Jake; but though
the scowl was still dark, he turned in without another word.

All through the midnight watch there was a sharp fight going on between
the hatred in Jake’s heart and some new influence that seemed to be
cooling and soothing the fire, he did not know how. Was he going to be
a spooney, and let what he’d vowed one night die out the next, or get
frightened by Ratlins’ talk about cold lead and iron bracelets? But
after all, what was the second mate to him any longer? Yet he _had_
been something to him, and was he going to forget it? Never!

The watch wore away, and still the struggle went on.

“If it only wasn’t for the old woman at home!” thought Jake. “She’s
kept a long watch and done a good deal of praying, in hopes to make
something of me. And I _might_ have been something if it hadn’t been
for--!” and Jake shook his fist towards the mate’s room. “But after
all, foul deeds leave a black mark on a man’s soul, and she’d fret her
heart out if the hearing of it should come to her. But if every man’s
hand is against me, who says it’s my fault if my hand’s against every
man? It’s so long since I’ve had a word spoken to me as if I had as
much of a soul as the plank under my feet, that I don’t know as I have
any to put a stain on; and whose fault is it, I say? And if I don’t
keep the men to their word to-night, they’re bound no longer. And what
difference does it make? There’s nobody that thinks I’ve got any soul
to save.”

Carter’s voice was heard giving orders to haul taut the main-sheet. The
tones were quiet and decided, but there was something in them that made
the men spring to with a will, and the work was done almost in a minute.

“Belay there, my hearty!” said Carter; and Jake, who had the end,
glanced suddenly in his face, and caught a look of kindliness,
friendliness, and good cheer, more perhaps than discipline would have
allowed, the mate to show if he had thought it would be observed.

The work was done! What chord had he touched? Jake did not know, but he
felt a change sweeping through his heart like coming out of an icebelt
into tradewinds. A few moments later the bell relieved the watch; Jake
plunged below and threw himself into his bunk, his face covered with
his hard hands and sobbing like a child.

Carter had been the means of bringing one man to repentance, and saving
the life of another--perhaps of half a dozen more.




CHAPTER XXI.


The same evening that Penfield’s fate was hanging in the balance, Uncle
Ralph sat cosily by the library fire, newspaper in hand, and waiting
for Aleck to come home. Everything was so sure to go well with his two
faithful clerks, and the new luxury of home was so tempting, that he
was getting into the way of leaving business early, and for the first
time in his life enjoying his own fireside for an hour or two in the
evening. But the newspaper was upside down this time, and his own
thoughts seemed to be uppermost and so engrossing that he started when
he heard Aleck’s key in the door.

“Well, sir,” he said, as Aleck came in with as light a step and as
glowing a face as if such a thing as work had never been heard of,
“I’ve been making a discovery, sitting here all alone; and that is,
that I’ve been a poor fool not to have made a home for myself, in
some shape or other, thirty years ago! Don’t you follow my example,
old fellow. You must get a wife all in good time, but still it is
possible there are some other things to be thought of first. What day
is to-morrow?”

“Tuesday, I believe,” said Aleck.

“Humph! Yes. Anything else?”

“Only my birthday, so far as I know. I shall be twenty-one, I suppose,
if I live to see it.”

“Ah! Well that is what I was thinking about half an hour ago, I
believe; and I was only waiting for you to come home to ask you how you
would like to have ‘Halliday’s’ known as ‘Halliday & Co.’ in future.”

Aleck started.

“O uncle, I don’t deserve that! That is too much!”

“We wont go as far as to talk of deserts,” said his uncle. “If I could
tell you how my life came to be a lonely one, and how lonely it has
been, you could understand better what you have been to me the last few
years. If you had refused me when I asked you to come, I don’t know
what I should have done, and it would be ten times worse to part with
you now; and as one never knows what notion a young man may take, you
see I’m only casting an anchor to windward for myself, if I can pin you
a little closer. There aren’t many men lucky enough to have two such
right-hands as you and Thorndyke; and if I can get one of them for a
partner, why, we’ll divide the other between us, that is all. Thorndyke
is a genius! If he keeps on at this rate, we old men may have to step
aside and let him come in as number one some day, yet. But you are my
brother’s son, Aleck, and I want you in my sight and by my side as long
as I live; you have been the greatest comfort of my life; you have made
a green spot in it the last few years, and it would be like going back
to Sahara to give you up.”

Aleck did not sleep much that night; not for worlds would he have told
his uncle that he had been fighting away with college studies all these
years; and as he had watched Thorndyke coming on, a faint hope had
grown stronger and stronger that he might take his place some day, and
so much more than fill it that he could slip away without being really
missed. But that was all gone now; he would never leave his uncle!
And as for himself! Well, he had been happy in the store, even while
dreaming all the time of getting away, and if he could once settle
that question, and be done with fidgeting about it, he might be _very_
happy. And he was quite sincere in all his gratitude to his uncle. He
was giving him a position to be envied by any business man, and there
was no better place than Halliday’s for making a fortune, at all events.

So it was all settled, and no one was more proud of the new arrangement
than the senior clerk, as Thorndyke now became.

“And a lucky fellow you are, Thorndyke, to get your foot on that round
in the ladder,” said Tom, who had come in to see how Aleck carried
his new dignity, and stopped, as he always did, for a few words with
Thorndyke. “If I thought I should ever get to that I should take
courage, but it seems as if I never should; and I don’t know that I
shall be any better off, after all, when the day comes at last.”

Thorndyke glanced quickly in Tom’s face. It had seemed to him looking
rather wobegone for some time past, and he wondered if Tom was having
any trouble. He could give a faint guess, for he had been sent over to
Fenimore & Co.’s a good many times since he had been in the store, and
though the thought of Hal was so inseparably connected with the one
terrible memory of his life, that he had avoided even the sight of him
when possible, he had heard him speak to Tom with those same taunting
tones that brought the whole thing up with a rush, and made him tingle
to his fingers’ ends for Tom. Never since that dreadful day could he
hear an unkind word spoken to any human being without a shiver through
his own heart; and when it came in Hal’s own voice, he could only look
at Tom and wonder how he could bear it, and wish he were a strong man
and a rich one, that he might somehow get hold of him and pull him out
of the reach of it.

“It wont be very long, will it?” he asked; “isn’t Hal going in as
partner soon?”

“Yes,” said Tom, “in two or three months; but there’s Gray between
us, you know; and, after all, I don’t know that it makes any great
difference. It will be the same old mill, whatever wheel in it I turn,
and the same ugly grind. Some day before I know it I shall find it has
ground whatever soul I ever had into such small dust I cannot find it.”

“If you think there is any danger of that, why don’t you get out of
it?” asked Thorndyke, more earnestly than he dared to show Tom, and the
next moment he was almost frightened at the look that came into Tom’s
face.

“I tell you,” said Tom, “it’s all very fine to ask a drowning man why
he don’t catch at some straw, when there are half a dozen other people
hanging on him at the same time. If it wasn’t that they’re depending
on me at home, and have been waiting for me all these years, the world
isn’t so wide but I’d put half of it between me and Fenimore’s before
many days had passed. But, as things are, of course there’s nothing for
it but to stick by. I’ll hold on as long as I can, but if I go down,
and the rest with me, I can’t help it.”

Tom’s eyes met Thorndyke’s with an almost desperate look, and then he
turned suddenly away. “Pshaw, Thorndyke, I tell you again you don’t
know what a lucky dog you are. Shut up here with a fellow like Aleck I
should not think you had a trouble left in the world!”

So it was all out! It was Hal, as Thorndyke had thought! And with Tom’s
forlorn face turning away as if ashamed of what he had said, Thorndyke
felt more troubled than ever. What could he do about it?--as he had
asked himself many times before.

But after Tom had gone the consciousness of another pain came over him;
he had felt it like a stab, at Tom’s last words, but he was too much
engrossed by anxiety for him, to dwell upon them at the moment; now
they came echoing back: “I shouldn’t think you’d feel you had a trouble
in the world.”

And was that all Tom knew, all he realized after all these years and
with his memory of that terrible day long ago? Well, that was just as
Thorndyke had meant it should be, just as he was trying to have it all
the time; and why should he feel this strange pain when he found it was
so? He had been so bent on being a brave soldier.

He had let every one look at him, and heard whisperings now and then,
and had done his work, and gone home with a smile for the doctor and
Nellie, and the thought of the great Captain had kept him strong
through it all. It had been hard enough sometimes, and some of the
hardest had been when the other boys came in to tell Aleck about their
games or their excursions, or to beg him off to join them.

“All but me!” always came quickly up with its old ring, and brought
with it the echo of what the doctor had said when he nodded good-by to
him at the school-room.

“Remember you don’t run too hard till you are used to it; but I wont be
afraid to match you with the fleetest of them, in a few months’ time.”

He thought no one had ever guessed a word; the pale face and great
dark eyes looked quietly over the counter, or went about their work,
or smiled good-by as Aleck went off, as if they had no thought of
anything else; but Aleck and the doctor knew it all; and the doctor
used to tramp up and down the room now and then, until Nelly would
glance up wonderingly from her work.

“The very same! The very same look he gave me the first time he opened
his eyes at me, after it began to seem as if he might pull through
after all! Nothing in the world for him, and it’s all right there
shouldn’t be, and he’s glad there’s such a good time for you and me;
that’s what there is in that smile of his.”

“I don’t see how he can quite feel that there’s nothing in the world
for him when he has us all,” said Nelly gently. “He surely can’t forget
that.”

“No,” said the doctor, “he does not forget that, and I don’t believe
the thought of us is out of his mind a moment from the time he leaves
the house in the morning, and he hangs upon it till he comes back at
night; but still, life has something outside of us, or ought to have,
to a fellow like him. And it would have had, if it hadn’t been for a
set of miserable----”

The doctor’s book was very near taking another fly out of the window;
but he only added quietly, “However, he’ll find out that he’s somebody
yet, and make his fortune, if nothing more. Halliday says he’s a
genius, and he’ll be known as the first chemist in the state, some day.”

The doctor was right about Thorndyke’s “hanging on.” It seemed as if,
aside from the thought of the Prince Royal, he lived and moved in the
doctor and Aleck; and as for Nelly, she had never come to seem quite
like a real person yet, always the beautiful vision of the flower
window. The doctor was first of all, of course; Thorndyke watched his
every movement as if it were food for his eyes, no matter how engrossed
they might be with any work. But still, it only seemed wonderful
that he had them all; he could not make it seem anything that really
belonged to him; only a grace from day to day.

But poor Tom! He was sure he was having trouble somehow, and to see
any one in trouble was always trouble itself to Thorndyke; what could
he do? How could he make things seem any better? If he could only get
Tom over to Halliday’s, with Aleck! But that would be throwing away the
years he had been working and waiting for promotion at Fenimore’s.




CHAPTER XXII.


Tom was too busy just then to be thinking of promotion, or of woes by
the way; the busy season was coming on, and he had just been advanced
to the wholesale room; quite a step, and he couldn’t help liking it,
though Hal was in the same department. Hal was a good fellow enough
when he didn’t happen to feel like saying anything disagreeable, and
when he did--pshaw! would Tom never get over being a goose?

Hal was busy in his turn; a customer had just come in whom the junior
partner had turned over to him with the whisper that it was especially
important he should be pleased, and Hal had been sharpening his
business wits to capture him. But it seemed for some time as if he
would not be caught; he knew precisely what he wanted and would not be
taken in any other net. But if he knew what he wanted it would only
be the more of a failure if Fenimore & Co. couldn’t suit him, and Hal
redoubled his energies, and called every resource into requisition.

At last it seemed as if triumph were at hand. The customer caught
sight of a lot of goods and stopped suddenly before them.

“There!” he exclaimed, “there’s something I should like, if they’re
what they seem to be;” and he stooped to examine them.

Hal caught a look from the junior partner which said, “Don’t have any
difficulty there; push your advantage,” and he waited anxiously for
what should come next.

The inspection was concluded, and the goods pronounced very handsome.

“Now what do you ask for those?”

At another look from the partner, Hal named the price, a trifle lower
than the mark.

“That’s reasonable,” said the customer. “I think I’ll take the whole
lot;” and Hal’s triumph rose to high-water mark as the junior smiled
across to him. A good piece of work for so early in the morning, for
this was a man who bought heavily and paid well, but had never brought
his patronage to Fenimore & Co. before.

“But wait a moment,” he said, “are these all you have?”

“All we have,” said Hal, “and we had the only invoice. We sold a
smaller lot to Pollard & Leighton, and I assure you no one else will
have them.”

“Ah! Pollard & Leighton have them? Then I do not care to take them, and
as I see nothing else that I require, I will bid you good morning,” and
with a bow he left the store.

The junior partner hardly waited for him to be out of hearing.

“And a nice piece of work you’ve made of it for a fellow almost
twenty-one, and coming into the firm before long! He didn’t ask you
if any of the goods had been sold, and you needn’t have gone out of
your way to tell him; but even if you must needs do that, it was quite
another thing to give names. We’ve lost that man now, I suppose.”

Hal walked into the next room without a word, more annoyed and
chagrined than at anything that had happened since he had been in the
store. He had made a great mistake and there was no getting over it,
and he had sufficient pride in Fenimore & Co. to feel sorry enough at
the best; but the junior being so disturbed about it made the matter
worse. However there was no use fretting, and perhaps he should find
something in the next room to help him forget it.

Yes there was something sure enough. Tom had got hold of an equally
desirable customer, and was making a great swing with him. His spirits
were rising tremendously, and by the time he had finished his sale
he had forgotten that anything disagreeable had ever happened in the
course of his life.

“Who was that?” asked Hal.

“A man from Illinois,” said Tom, “and a pretty good thing we’ve made of
it too.”

“Let me see the bill,” said Hal, and he ran his eye over it.

“Look here,” he exclaimed, putting his finger on a point in the list
where Tom’s pride was particularly centred, “you didn’t sell him those
goods at the price marked here, did you?”

“Of course I did; why not?”

“Why not?” asked Hal, with the sting of the old sneer made sharper than
ever by the freshness of his own annoyance, “no reason in the world
that I know of, except that it is five cents a yard less than we paid
for them.”

Tom stood aghast, and his tongue seem fast to the roof of his mouth.
His first week in the salesroom, and a blunder like that! Should he be
sent down again in disgrace, or only left to feel as if he ought to be?

Hal’s own trouble went clear out of sight, and he laughed a most
exasperating laugh that Tom was only too familiar with.

“Better take that bill down to the senior,” he said. “Illinois is a
great state; perhaps he’d like to send you out there to establish a
branch.”

Tom’s memory suddenly ran back, he didn’t stop to ask how, to a certain
night, years ago, when he sat over his game of chess under Hal’s
gaslight, and the same miserable feeling that had sent him home so fast
that evening hugged him tight as he went down to the counting-room to
have things set right if there was any way to do it. He remembered in
what a hurry he had tucked himself away under his blankets that night;
but there was no such skulking to be done now; he had got to face
things the best way he could.

And he _could_ face almost anything if people only wouldn’t say
something disagreeable about it! He supposed it was ridiculous, but it
was no use; he would rather any one would knock him down any day. Well,
he must try to keep out of Hal’s way for a few days; that was all that
could be done this time.

But that was of no use either. Hal stood square in the doorway, with
two or three clerks at his side, the next morning, and the very first
salute was, “How’s Illinois this morning? Suppose we give three cheers
for the Hoosier state?”

For one moment Tom felt as if _he_ could have knocked somebody down;
but that wasn’t like Tom, and was gone again as quickly as it came,
only the old forlornness that had come to be almost an everyday thing
since he came into the store, stuck by.

The last straw breaks the camel’s back, and this time Tom found himself
getting desperate. He pushed past Hal, and made his way to his post,
but he was thankful enough that no important business came to him that
day; he should have made worse work of it than yesterday, for his only
thought was how to get out of it altogether, a thousand miles away if
he could, he didn’t care where or what became of him afterwards, if
only he need never see Hal again! And he _would_ get away! Hal was to
be junior partner himself soon, and things would be worse than ever,
and even if the day _should_ ever come when the firm kept their promise
to Mr. Willoughby, Hal would be above him still; and for ever, so far
as he could see. He would rather earn his living with a pick-axe, if
he could only be left to feel like a man while he carried it on his
shoulder.

“Don’t care what becomes of you, Tom Haggarty! All very well, but what
is going to become of the rest waiting for you at home?” whispered
something in his ear.

Ah, there it was, and it always came round to that again, no matter
what desperate resolves he took up for a moment.

Yes, he supposed he must stick where he was and take what came, though
he believed he’d rather be a galley-slave, provided nobody ever spoke
to him; it must be he wasn’t much of a man, after all, or nobody would
dare taunt him quite as often as Hal!

There was his voice at this moment!

“Where’s the hoosier general betaken himself? I want to inquire how
he’s brought out profit and loss this morning;” and Tom heard a laugh
from the younger clerks that seemed the echo of Hal’s own.




CHAPTER XXIII.


“Doctor! are you there?” called a voice through Dr. Thorndyke’s
speaking-tube, in the dead of night.

“Yes,” was the answer; “what’s wanted?”

“Come down right away, can’t you? It’s Aleck. Uncle Ralph isn’t all
right, I think.”

“Wait three minutes for me,” and they were scarcely past when the
front-door opened and the doctor was ready.

“What do you say, Aleck? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t tell, indeed,” said Aleck as they hurried on; “some sound I
heard led me to fear that he was in trouble, and I went to his room. He
seems to be sleeping, but he looks strangely, and I can’t rouse him.”

Neither could the doctor. He knew that as soon as he got one look in
the face, but he did not say so; he stepped quietly to the bed and
shook him gently by the shoulder, then lifted an eyelid, listened to
the heavy breathing, and looked Aleck slowly in the face.

“Stimulants?” asked Aleck, eagerly.

The doctor shook his head.

“No use, my boy; we will try, if you like, but the work is done, I’m
afraid.”

Aleck brought something, but only to find, as the doctor said, it was
of no use.

“Oh, what is it?” he cried; “what _is_ the matter? Why cannot we do
something?”

“Because there is nothing to be done, Aleck, nothing but to wait and
watch by him, that he may not be alone at the last.”

“Oh, why would not he listen to me!” groaned Aleck. “It has seemed as
if he were beside himself of late, arranging his business. I could not
see why he need hurry things so, but I have found him busy over his
papers every night when I came home, and left him busy when I went to
bed. I was sure he was doing too much, but I never thought of this!”

“That is the secret of it,” said the doctor, “but not the whole secret.
He has not been well; he has felt some symptoms probably that urged him
to it; either weight alone he might have borne.”

“And there is no hope? He is going to leave us? Oh, do let me call
Nelly!”

“Not quite yet,” said the doctor, detaining him gently; “let us watch
him awhile. A little nearer morning would be better for Nelly.”

So they watched and waited, and just as morning dawned and Nelly came,
Uncle Ralph was gone, not even knowing that any one stood by his side
to say good-by.

Gone! Aleck had almost forgotten all the word meant, it was so many
years now since he and Nelly were first left alone together, and he had
not realized how nearly his father’s place had been filled since his
uncle came to make his home at the cottage. And now it was all over
again! The world looked dark enough as he opened the front-door to step
out into it again the next morning, but it was as real as ever, and
making more demands upon him than ever before. There were a thousand
things to be done and thought of, and after a day or two Aleck found
himself, though still bewildered with all that had happened, called
upon on every hand--everything referred to him at the store, and he
knew there must be affairs to be attended to beyond what the books
could show.

The first thing was to send for his uncle’s lawyer. He came at once,
but the usual form of condolence was rather shortened, and he looked in
Aleck’s face with a smile.

“And now, sir, you must allow me to present my congratulations to
yourself.”

“To me!” exclaimed Aleck, between surprise and anger; what could he
mean?

“Yes, sir, to you, as sole heir of your uncle’s estate, which has been
supposed for some years to be large, but the amount disposed of in the
will may even surprise yourself.”

“The will! I did not suppose a will existed, and indeed I know it did
not a while ago.”

“Very possibly,” said the lawyer; “but there is one deposited in my
safe at present bearing, I think, the same date with your admission
into partnership, and with the exception of a handsome legacy to your
sister and to the young man associated with you here--Thorndyke, I
think his name is--you will find yourself the recipient of the whole;
and I must beg once more to congratulate you on a fortune and a
business establishment such as fall to the lot of few young men.”

Aleck stood bewildered, but when Thorndyke heard the news, the “all
but me” was forgotten in his smile for once. “O Aleck, it’s glorious!
The Prince Royal has given it to you, I know he has, and it’s only the
small beginning of what you deserve, and what He’ll find for you some
day.”

“What I deserve?” said Aleck, putting his hands on Thorndyke’s
shoulders and looking earnestly in his face. “I do not deserve anything
from Him.”

Thorndyke shook his head.

“What did He say about a cup of cold water to one of the least? I
should have died of thirst if it had not been for the doctor and you;
you know that very well.”

“And don’t you think I would rather have had Uncle Ralph than all the
fortunes in the world?”

“Yes, I know you would, and I have lost him too; but, O Aleck, you
can’t help my being glad for what has happened to you.”

“And something has happened to you, too, young man, if the story is
true at all.”

“Oh, I hope not,” said Thorndyke; “that wouldn’t be right. What have
I ever done, and I owe him everything! No, Aleck, I want you to take
everything, and just let me stay and help you always; that is more than
I deserve.”

“Tut,” said Aleck, “we’ll see, my boy; but if you shouldn’t stay by,
the old ship would go down on very short notice; you know well enough,
I was never anything more than the tail of the comet, since I undertook
this business.”

“The story,” as Aleck called it, was quite true, and thanks to all the
toil Uncle Ralph had expended upon his affairs, those last few weeks,
Aleck stepped into his new dignities with very little perplexity or
trouble.

Some people shook their heads and said they were a young set of hands
left at Halliday’s, to steer such a craft as that. But they soon found
that higher authorities did not think so; the physicians’ patronage
came in just the same, so the rest of the world concluded to give up
their doubts, and popular as Aleck and Thorndyke had always been, it
was more than ever the thing to go to Halliday’s.

So all went on smoothly and well, only they missed Uncle Ralph more
than they could tell. But as time wore on, Thorndyke, who was always
watching Aleck, thought he saw more of a shadow in his face than even
his loss could account for; it was not natural for Aleck to look as if
his thoughts were busy with something outside, while people and things
close by were forgotten, or only attended to as if they disturbed him.
But once or twice when Thorndyke tried to sound him, or even ventured
to ask what he was thinking about, he got for answer a sudden lighting
up of Aleck’s face, and the old gay laugh that had been music to
Thorndyke so many times.

[Illustration]

“Thinking about you, old fellow!” he would say, and put his hands on
Thorndyke’s shoulders a moment, and for a little while seemed to have
come back again. But not for long. He had told the truth, as he always
did, and he was thinking about Thorndyke; but that was not all, and the
thinking went on, until at last the problem was worked out, questions
were settled, and Aleck came back to stay. This time Thorndyke asked no
questions; only a quick look and a smile passed between him and Aleck,
and they understood each other perfectly. But Aleck had something to
say, if Thorndyke did not ask, only not quite yet.

“Not yet,” he said to himself. “I must wait for his birthday; and after
waiting all these years, a few months wont count for much.”




CHAPTER XXIV.


The few months slipped away and the birthday came, or at least the day
that was always celebrated as such; for though neither Mrs. Ganderby
nor any of the other people under the shadow of the old butternut-tree
had the least idea when or where the record should have been made, the
doctor called him just twelve when he first saw him, and insisted upon
a birthday every year that same day in October.

Aleck went to the store an hour before time to catch him and have his
talk out before people began to come in. But early as he was, Thorndyke
was there before him, and a customer too; so Aleck retreated into the
sheltered corner behind the desk to wait his opportunity. Thorndyke
gave him a nod and a radiant look as he came in, for these birthdays
were times when, for one day in the year, the “all but me” was _forced_
to flee away; the doctor had always planned some excursion, and
managed that he could bear it; and the little room, that had seemed
such a paradise the first time he saw it, was gradually filling up
with treasures, more and more beautiful every year, until the walls
would hardly hold anything more. Uncle Ralph’s was missing this time,
but all the rest were there, even to old Joan’s; and the flowers that
had always come from Nelly since the very first, “went ahead,” as
Aleck called it, of all that had ever come before. The doctor was in
high spirits, and Thorndyke thought “the princess” had never been so
bewitching in her gentle, lovely ways. He _couldn’t_ say “All but me”
this morning; he had almost forgotten it, and there was actually a bit
of color in his cheeks, and the great eyes shone as Aleck had not seen
them since that day he stood before the window so many years ago.

Aleck sat and watched him as he went about to fill the prescription
waited for.

“Good for him!” he said to himself; “the boy looks gay this morning.
But I declare I wish I didn’t remember how he looked that miserable
day at the school. That thing between his shoulders was hardly worth
noticing then; I wonder the boys saw it at all--and now! It seems as
if it almost buried that splendid head and face of his, and I know the
pain is always there by the patient, wistful look out of his eyes. And
his step that flew down the street so that I couldn’t catch him that
day! It never breaks now from that slow, noiseless way it has. Well,
it’s no use thinking what might have been, and I suppose I should never
have had him here if all had gone well. Will that man _never_ be ready
to go? Ah, there he is actually steering for the door!”

But at the same instant somebody else came in, only a little child,
however, wanting something that would take but a moment. So Aleck
possessed his soul in patience; there surely would not be any one else
in, it was so early.

But what was the matter with Thorndyke?

The child stood innocently enough before the counter, but Thorndyke’s
face was growing white, the glow was gone, and sharp lines coming in
its place, and the thin fingers trembled so that it seemed as if the
package never would be tied. But it was done at last, and Thorndyke
handed it to the child with the same smile and the same gentle
“Anything more?” that the customers had learned to expect. But when
the door was shut, Aleck started. What _was_ the matter? Thorndyke was
leaning against the wall, his lips pressed tightly together, and the
great veins showing blue and hard on his forehead.

“What is it, Thorndyke?” said Aleck, springing towards him.

Thorndyke covered his face with his fingers, and his whole frame
quivered as Aleck had never seen it before, but as the doctor saw it
once under the overhanging of the old rock.

“O Aleck, I cannot bear it! Didn’t you see? I can bear anything else. I
can let a strong man look down at me, but that wondering, pitying look
of a little child! That is the one thing I cannot bear! Oh, why must I
always be a soldier? I am _so_ tired, and I had almost forgotten I was
one to-day!”

Aleck drew him quickly into the shelter of the desk, and got his arm
round his neck.

“There, there, rest a little if you are so tired! you are the bravest
little soldier in all the world, and the lightest weapons are the
hardest to stand against sometimes. Is that the reason you always get
out of the way when a child comes in? I noticed it, but I never knew.
Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t, old fellow! don’t mind. I’ve got lots
I want to say to you this morning, and I thought it should be such a
happy day. If you only knew, if you only would believe how wonderful
you are to every one! The doctor and Nelly would think they had
nothing in the world to be proud of, if it weren’t for you; and you
know what Uncle Ralph thought and everybody else is finding out. And
as for fighting, you get victories every day where the strongest of us
would go down.”

But Aleck had to wait awhile for his talk. The next customer that came
in saw the queer little form going about just as usual, but Aleck knew
it was no time for him, and waited till evening when he got Thorndyke
by himself in his own room, the fire crackling and the room shining as
if there had never been such a thing as a shadow in the world.

“Now, old fellow,” he began, after he had been going on merrily for a
while, “I’ve got a little business proposal to make. I want you to buy
me out.”

The great eyes opened in amazement.

“Buy you out, Aleck! What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I say,” and then Aleck told him all the sacrifice
it had been to him to go into the store to begin with, how he had done
it for Nellie’s sake and his uncle’s, and how he had gone steadily
through the whole college course out of hours, as well as it was
possible to do by himself.

“I had an idea, you see, of slipping off and leaving the coast to you,
you were doing so splendidly and Uncle Ralph was so proud of you; but
that night he talked to me about the partnership, I saw it would not do
then. But now, why not? I know he thought I should always stay, but if
he sees how things go among us at all, he sees what it would be to me
to get away, and I know what he would say. We’ll never take the name
down, old fellow, it shall be Halliday still, and I’ll hang about more
or less till you have one more birthday, and when you are twenty-one,
up goes ‘Halliday & Thorndyke,’ and I leave you to your own devices
altogether.”

“But Aleck, where are you going? What do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do? I want to get my profession: what I have always
wanted, and what my father wanted for me. He thought I should be a
lawyer, I know, but I should never make one in the world; there is only
one profession for me, and I am going to the headquarters you and I
think most of. I’m going to study with Dr. Thorndyke. Why shouldn’t a
man be a doctor if he wants to?”

“All but me!” The doctor had meant to make one of him, Thorndyke knew
that very well. However that was neither here nor there. Aleck was
going to leave him; that was all to be thought of now.

“But Aleck!” he cried, and then stopped himself. Aleck had sacrificed
everything all these years, because his uncle wanted him; he should
never know what the store and life would seem, when he hadn’t him at
his side any longer!

“Only you know--why, Aleck, I can’t buy you out! you know very well
what I have wouldn’t buy a corner of the store.”

“Well, put that in, if you’re not afraid to risk it, and you shall have
the whole profits of the business from to-day onward; and if you manage
the old concern as well as I know you can, you will own the whole of it
before many years. Uncle Ralph would like it, I know, and I don’t see
why we sha’n’t be jolly all around.”

“But Aleck!” said Thorndyke again, “I can’t do it! It would be just
taking what belongs to you and putting it in my pocket. I never will do
it in the world.”

“Well now, wait a minute,” said Aleck. “I haven’t finished my remarks
about it. In the first place, there’s more than I know what to do with,
without it, and in the second place, I owe it to you if there wasn’t,
for you have made life in the store a different thing to me a thousand
times over. Do you think I could ever have kept up heart if I hadn’t
thought so much of your being there every day, or could ever have been
patient through it all if I hadn’t seen such a little fighter at my
side? So that’s settled so far, and now in the third place, I can’t
desert the ship, unless you will take the whole command, and if you
do you ought to have the whole profits. And in the fourth place,” and
Aleck put his arm around his future partner’s neck again in a most
unbusinesslike way, “in the fourth place, it’s all in the family,
whatever you do and have, you dear, little old soldier? Don’t you know
nobody could be closer to us all? Flesh and blood couldn’t bring it any
nearer, and if we’re so proud of you now, what will it be by-and-by?”

Nobody could resist Aleck. It was all settled with the doctor and
Thorndyke and everybody else, just as he would like it, and before they
really knew what he was about, and Thorndyke very soon found himself
really steering the ship, and Aleck only “hanging about more or less,”
as he had said. A good deal “less,” Thorndyke thought, but it was
better than losing him altogether, and he was determined he should
never know how he missed him.




CHAPTER XXV.


Tom sauntered into Halliday’s now and then, as he always had, but
Thorndyke saw something, he couldn’t tell what, that worried him more
and more; at all events Tom looked more hopeless and forlorn every time.

“What a man you’re making, Thorndyke!” he said one day; “it was in you,
I suppose, and it wasn’t in me; that’s the difference. But you don’t
know what a chance you’ve had. Did Aleck ever badger you or crowd you
in all the time you were together?”

“_Aleck!_ Why, you know him, Tom!”

“Yes, I suppose so; only I can’t imagine anybody’s leaving you in peace
and quiet all the time. Well, I might have made something, perhaps,
if I’d been here, though not much, probably. I always was a stupid,
blundering fellow, and never should have been of much account, anyhow.
I’m none at all now, though, and I’d give up and let everything go to
the bottom, if there was nobody that thought he could hold on to me if
I didn’t. They’ll find out their mistake some day; but I suppose I
ought to hold on till they do.”

“You wouldn’t like any one else to say that,” said Thorndyke, greatly
troubled.

“Well, it’s not very amusing, but I do hear it every day of my life,
and so I suppose it must be the truth, even if there _are_ some people
kind enough not to tell me so.”

A customer came before Thorndyke had time to answer, and Tom left the
store with a slow, listless step. Work was waiting for him, however,
and lively enough to stir him up and make him forget whether he could
do it well or not, and when this happened, he was sure to do it well.
If he had known how often the other partners thought so, it would have
changed everything; but he came almost altogether in Hal’s way, and by
the time he had done with him, he couldn’t believe that any kind word
he had from the others was more than out of charity, and he never had
a summons into the counting-room without expecting to be told what a
stupid fellow he was, and wondering that it did not come.

But this time “stupid” certainly wasn’t the word. Tom was getting more
and more on his mettle as buyers came thicker and faster, and he “was
making things fly,” as Aleck would have called it, in a way that Hal
almost looked on with envy. Business hours were just coming to a close
when his run was over, and he stood near the door having a word with
his last customer, and with a record of sales that made him feel as if
he _was_ somebody, for a few minutes at least.

“Oh, by the way,” said the customer, “I want a drygoods-box. What is
that one worth, and can I have it?”

“Yes,” said Tom, “you can have it; about fifty cents will cover it, I
suppose.”

He handed him the amount, and Tom put it in his vest-pocket, and went
on laughing and chatting a few moments, feeling his extra spirits a
luxury he was tempted to extend over as much ground as possible, and in
fact they lasted him fairly home, and even the ghost of them came back
with him to business hours in the morning.

But the sound of Hal’s voice calling for the hoosier general dispelled
all that was left in a minute; there was nothing that tormented Tom
like that nickname, and it seemed as if it never would be done with.
Even if it was dropped once in a while, until he began to flatter
himself it had really gone under, up it came again, always at a moment
when he felt least like bearing it, and he was sure to see some of
the younger clerks daring to grin; and what could he say if they did?
Hadn’t he made a blunder that almost any of them would have been
disgraced for; and if the junior partner chose to remind him of it, he
supposed they had a _right_ to grin.

He got through with what Hal wanted, but it seemed to him Hal gave
him a peculiar look now and then. There was no mistake about it, and
it came oftener and oftener as the day went on. What did it mean? It
followed him home after hours, and worried him every time he knew where
he was through the night. What had he done now, and how many people
would hear of it as soon as he did? He should hear of it soon, he was
sure, for the same look was there when he came in the next morning.

“Sent in your accounts, since Thursday’s sales, general?” asked Hal.

“Why, yes, of course,” said Tom.

“Oh, very good,” and the look was more significant than ever.

Poor Tom was miserable again. Should he ever get through life, and be
done with it? Unluckily he had to get through to-day first, and it
dragged miserably enough, but the next promised no better. There was
the look again, and the same question: “Sent in your accounts, general?”

What did it mean? He couldn’t get Hal to say that it meant anything,
but the same look and the same question came every day, until it seemed
to Tom he should go distracted, and he was divided between thankfulness
and agony when he heard Mr. Vickery, the next partner, ask suddenly,

“What do you mean, Fenimore? I’ve heard you ask Haggarty that same
thing every day for a week; doesn’t he send in his accounts as a matter
of course?”

“I don’t know that he doesn’t,” said Hal, “but I’ve noticed a little
deficiency, and I’ve been waiting to see it made up.”

“Deficiency!” exclaimed Tom; “what do you mean?”

“Perhaps you thought the item too trifling for a place in the books,”
said Hal, with the old intolerable taunt in his tone; “there _are_
people who don’t like to trouble themselves about trifles.”

“Not business people,” said Mr. Vickery, “and Haggarty knows that well
enough; if there is anything wrong, it had better be set right as soon
as possible,” and he looked searchingly in Tom’s face.

Tom’s desperation gave him boldness for once, as he stepped in front of
Hal.

“Tell me what you mean!” he exclaimed. “Wait a moment, Mr. Vickery, if
you please, and hear what he means.”

“Oh, nothing of any consequence, only that I saw you make a sale the
other day and put the money in your pocket, and I’ve seen no return of
it in your accounts.”

Mr. Vickery’s look was piercing now; Tom stood bewildered for a
moment, and then thrust his finger into his vest-pocket with a sharp
exclamation such as no one in the store had ever heard him use before.

“I sold a drygoods-box the other day,” he said, “and upon my word and
honor I have never thought of it from that moment to this! You know
how we had been worked that day, Fenimore, and I had two hours to come
after that though it was past time to close then. There is the money,
and there it might have been till next year, if you had not reminded
me of it, but I think it is the first time my memory has defrauded the
house of even such a sum as fifty cents.”

“Possibly,” said Hal, with the sneer still on his face; “but it may be
well to look out for it in the future;” and he turned to his books
without another word.

“Let it pass, Haggarty,” said the other partner gravely; “it was a
trifle to be sure, but the world is built on trifles, and that is one
of the first things to be remembered in business.”

Tom turned away with tight-shut lips and a white face. How many had
overheard the conversation? There were plenty within reach of it, at
any rate, and he might be called a thief all through the store before
night! And even if he escaped that, he did not believe Mr. Vickery
would ever feel sure of him again. Hal _knew_ better, but he had come
very little in the second partner’s way.




CHAPTER XXVI.


All the rest of that day, Tom went about his work like a wooden thing;
he answered questions and handled things that came in his way, but his
thoughts were running heavily back and forth over the long dreary years
since Mr. Willoughby picked him up in his chaise, and always coming
round to the same miserable point at last. How brave and patient he
had meant to be, how faithful he had tried to be, through it all, for
the sake of those at home, and how he had meant to deserve all the
promotion he should ever get, and let the firm feel he had repaid them
well for all they did for him. And who had ever taken the slightest
notice whether he did or not, who had ever been the wiser for it all?
And now that it was almost over, now that he thought such recompense as
money could give was just before him, to be shunned and sneered at for
a thief!

Who had even noticed? He remembered suddenly what Aleck had said to
him, that dark terrible time, about _One_ who _always_ did, and was
always ready to help.

“Yes,” he said, “I know it. I lived on that all the next year, and I
never felt so much like a man in my life; but since I came here, that,
and everything else that had any life in it, seems to have been driven
out of me. If I _could_ have hung on to it, it might have helped me
through everything. It’s my own fault that I didn’t, I suppose, but
after a fellow gets to feeling so horridly as I have from one year’s
end to another, he lets go of everything sometimes. If I could only
have gone somewhere else! There’s Thorndyke now, he never’ll know what
a chance he had there, with Aleck always next to him! But there’s an
end to everything, and I’ll--”

But up came once more the thought of “the rest at home.” If he left the
store, and went out into the world, how many more years might it be
before he could be worth anything to them! And where could he go, and
what could he do, if he went out from Fenimore’s with such whisperings
as were likely to follow him! And yet, it seemed to him another day
there would be worse than a thousand deaths. _That_ day was done, at
last, at all events, and Tom, as he passed out into the dark, saw no
one, and scarcely knew where he was. But a familiar voice sounded in
his ears.

“I say, Haggarty, what a hurry you’re in!”

He turned and saw Davis, his old schoolfellow at the professor’s. He
had not seen him from that time, until a few days before. He only knew
that he went abroad directly after graduating, and had returned within
a fortnight, “for a visit.”

“Why, man alive,” he said, as a gaslight fell on Tom’s face, “what’s
the matter with you? How white you are! Are you sick?”

“I wish I were,” said Tom, “and sick enough to have an end come to it
all,” and then shocked at having said so much to Davis, he stopped
suddenly.

“Hallo!” said Davis, “what’s the matter? Is luck bad to-day?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom, “some people never have any, you know. How
are you?”

“Look here,” said Davis, drawing Tom’s arm through his, “come along and
let’s understand about this. We’re old friends you know. There’s no use
in being down about the way the game goes; take heart and throw again,
that’s all.”

They walked away, and Davis began to talk of old times and of the
changes that had come. “And to think of you being left head of the
family and going to business! I was expecting you over there every
year for a while, till I found out how things were. Tell me how you
like it;” and he went on with one question after another, until before
Tom could believe it himself, he had drawn from him a pretty good idea
of how matters stood.

“I wouldn’t stay there,” said Davis; “I’d clear out and be found
missing some bright morning.”

“Perhaps you would,” said Tom, “with nobody looking to you to be
anything to them, and more money than you know what to do with.”

“Oh, is that the difficulty? I didn’t know that was the case; but it
isn’t the worst thing in the world to be got over. I can tell you a
way to ease matters off and get a start on your own feet before a
very long time;” and drawing Tom’s arm closer, he dropped into a low,
confidential tone.

“But I can’t!” exclaimed Tom, starting back in horror, as Davis came to
his point at last.

“Hold on,” said Davis, and went on talking rapidly in the same low
whisper without giving Tom a chance for another word.

“Look here!” said Tom, stopping in his walk, and turning on Davis like
some desperate creature driven to bay at last; “what do you take me
for? Do you mean to insult me?”

“Pooh!” said Davis, in the most imperturbable tone, regaining his hold
on Tom’s arm and drawing him into step again; “don’t fly out with a
fellow for trying to befriend you. There are slow ways of getting on in
the world, and quicker ones for those who can’t afford to wait, that’s
all; and I thought you were in a hurry. If you agree, I’ll introduce
you to as gentlemanly a set of fellows as you know, and I’ll warrant
you a welcome, for the truth is we want one more, of just your measure
too, to make our set complete. Don’t make up your mind in a hurry; it’s
early yet. Meet me here again at nine o’clock.”

“But I tell you I wont,” began Tom. “I don’t want to hear any such--”

“Pooh!” interrupted Davis again; “what’s the use of toiling a dozen
years under somebody’s thumb when you might make enough to stand on
your own feet in as many months? The world owes us a living, anyhow,
and I don’t see why handling a bit of paper skilfully isn’t quite as
much the gentlemanly thing as measuring away with a yardstick half a
lifetime. Just come up like a man, and I’ll be responsible for the
rest.”

It was seven o’clock, and for an hour and a half Tom pushed drearily up
and down the streets through a drizzling mist, but the fog lay thicker
and darker in his own brain. What should he say; what should he do? He
must do something, for he would rather die than have another year like
the last. Rather die? Of course he would; but people don’t always die
for the wishing, and who would there be to take his father’s place if
he should?

These thoughts crowded and whirled, and then came Aleck’s words, those
words spoken so long ago, but never forgotten, “Some One that always
notices.”

“I can’t help it,” he cried; “I believe I’m desperate. I’ve tried to
do my best all these years, and what’s the use? as Davis says. Oh, if
I only had one friend that really cared for me that I could go to and
tell everything! I _should_ have, I suppose, if I was worth it, and Hal
would have respected me if I’d been worth it; but he never did, and of
course nobody else did, only they were kind enough to keep it out of
sight.”

If Tom could only have seen Thorndyke at that moment, and known what he
was thinking of as he sat at his desk, with papers pushed away and his
eyes fixed somewhere a good way beyond, with a pained and troubled look!

“Hoosier general!” he was saying to himself; “I wonder what that
means? Something that Tom winced under, that was plain enough. I don’t
see how Fenimore finds it in his heart to worry him so, and I’m sure
there’s more of it going on than Tom knows how to get along with. I
wish I could do something to help him out of it. I wish I could get him
over here; it would be such a comfort now that Aleck is out of the way
so much! But he’s doing so well there, and he’s worked his way almost
to the top of the ladder, I could never ask him. I heard Fenimore
praising him to the rest of the firm the other day, and I don’t wonder.”

But Tom didn’t hear; he plodded up and down without knowing that he was
tired, and that he had eaten not a mouthful since morning, and that
the drizzling mist had penetrated and chilled him through. He was only
thinking of the store and of the hour of going back, and that if he did
not soon find some way of escape by which he could still hold on to his
duty at home, he was afraid he should let go of it! Oh, why was he left
so? Why could not his father have lived? The city bell struck eight,
and the echo of Davis’ voice seemed to repeat his words.

“Come up like a man!”

“Like a man!” echoed Tom again. “Like a counterfeiter and forger! What
did he want me to bring him Fenimore & Co.’s signature for? He thinks
there’s nothing decent in me, like the rest of the world, I suppose.
But no one ever thought I could quite make a thief yet!”

He started with a sudden stab of recollection.

“Yes, they have, too! Hal called me a thief, and tried his best to show
me off for one! What difference does it make if I go with Davis? And
who cares, whatever I do?”

Nine o’clock struck at last, and as he reached the lamppost Davis had
marked as a rendezvous, a figure stepped from behind it.

“Oh, here you are! That’s the right kind of a fellow!” whispered Davis,
slipping a hand into Tom’s arm. “Now come along and I’ll introduce you
to some of my friends.”

“Stop!” said Tom, squaring himself, “I’ll tell you in the outset, I
want nothing to do with any black work you may have going on; but if
you can take me somewhere where it’s warm and bright, let’s go. I can’t
walk here all night, and I can’t go home and talk to people, to save my
life.”




CHAPTER XXVII.


The Cumbermede was ploughing her way merrily under a favoring breeze;
her home run was half made, and everything had prospered as if
Captain Carter were making his first voyage under a propitious star.
His dream was realized at last, and he stood commander on his own
quarter-deck. And commander he was indeed; every one on board found
that out very speedily, for Carter had aimed at perfection from the
day he shipped as a raw hand, and the eight years of holding fast to
his motto hadn’t made him less devoted to it. Perfect order, perfect
discipline, perfect action, nothing less was accepted; but somehow,
instead of the thankless working, like wooden things, that most of them
had always found a sailor’s life to mean, every one sprang to his duty
with a will, and the ropes were pulled to a merry tune, instead of the
unearthly guttural groan that served just as well to keep the time on
many a ship.

Almost all were new hands this voyage. Penfield had disappeared long
ago, and only the first mate and one of the crew had ever seen the
vessel before. But that one stood by like one of her own timbers,
“long-limbed Jake.” His name had been on the ship’s papers ever since
the voyage when Carter had transferred him to his own watch, and
restless as sailors are, always believing the last vessel they sail in
the worst that ever ploughed the sea, no departing ship’s company could
ever tempt him away with them. He reappeared as regularly as repairs
were made and cargo entered, and his only restless times were before
Carter came aboard; as soon as his voice was heard, all right, and Jake
was himself again, and the best man in the ship’s crew, all officers
agreed.

It was rather hard times for Jake, this voyage. It seemed to him life
would never be anything again, now that Carter no longer had the watch.
But the something, Jake couldn’t have told what, that reached his
heart, and kindled a spark of life there, with that first “Belay there,
my hearty!” had kept its hold ever since, and did not need many words
to help it. The “Take care of yourself, Jake, and there’s a berth for
you next voyage if you want it,” as Carter went ashore, and the “On
hand again, my man?--that’s all right,” as he came aboard for another
voyage, set Jake about his business with a new glow, and the spark grew
brighter, and the bit of life warmer, as every trip went on. He had
been restless, this time, dreading lest he shouldn’t get his greeting
now that Carter came as captain. But there it was, just the same, and
with the same hearty tone and friendly look, and with that and his
pride in seeing him take command, Jake had enough to live on, though
the distance was doubled between them, and orders could never come
direct from him again; he should hear his voice at any rate, and could
watch for his coming on deck. What it had all been to Jake, Carter
could never know, for he couldn’t know all the deadly blackness that
had filled his heart that night of Penfield’s watch; and he couldn’t
see all the thoughts and memories that crowded the murderous hatred
out, as Jake lay in his bunk that night, sobbing like a baby.

They had come back so many times since, that it seemed as if the very
bunk would know them.

“It may be true after all,” they began that night, “it may be true
after all, what she always taught me, that I’ve got a soul of my own,
and the One that made it cares what becomes of it. If He cares for me,
mayhap it would be a pity not to care for myself. I might even think of
what the old woman at home is always saying, and wonder if it could
be true. I can remember the day when it did seem as if I was something
more than a dog, and it’s not so many years aback, either; but I’ve
been told I wasn’t, till I began to think other folks were right. It’s
a hard feeling, though, and goes against a man, if he is a man. And he
wouldn’t have looked at me like that if he hadn’t thought I was one!”

It was the same thing over and over many a night, only stronger and
clearer as time went on, until Jake’s thoughts ventured a little
farther still.

“And if it should be true, that there’s a man in me after all, mayhap
there’s something in more of what she had to say. She said the One that
made me was looking for something from me; but if he is, he sees plain
enough I’ve made a poor cruise of it so far. I’m a good many points
out of my course, there’s no mistake about that; the only question is
how I’m to get back again. She used to say he’d help me; that he died
to bring my reckoning right, and he was ready to head me towards port
again. Maybe it’s true. I wouldn’t have believed it once, but they say
he’s better than the best of us, and if he’s got more the heart of a
man in him than the mate has, he must be ready to lend a hand. Maybe
he could bring me to my bearings again, if he’d take the wheel; and
I’d set my sails square to the wind, if he would, for it comes rough
on a man when he really believes he might make port, and knows he’s
drifting on the rocks. And as for anything he wants of me, if there’s
more pleasure in bearing a hand or shifting a course for him than there
is for the mate, I should draw my pay in advance a hundred times over.”

Out from that dark, comfortless bunk, out from that heart so lately
full of bitterness and revenge, went the first upreachings of faith and
loyalty towards Him who was waiting and watching for them--the first
faint “ay, ay, sir,” to orders that were to save him from going down a
wreck. Jake did not know they were the first yielding to whispers he
would never listen to before; but the Whisperer knew and cherished them
as only He knows how to do. And many a night, as the voyages went on,
He drew nearer and said more; and as Jake listened, the lonely heart
reached out more strongly towards the Voice, and fell nearer and nearer
into its course, the homeward track of a soul that God has called.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


The Cumbermede had passed the line of gentle winds, and had struck a
point where strong ones and even storms might be looked for. Still the
sailors took no notice of the clouds; they believed too strongly in
luck, and the new captain had been running in a “streak” of it ever
since he hoisted anchor for the outward trip; he would get in all safe,
no fear of that. But the captain had less faith in his star, and more
in watchfulness, and was more frequently on deck as every day went by.

“I don’t like those clouds there to starboard, Morton,” he said to his
first officer one afternoon; “they look a little ugly to me.”

The mate took a sharp look towards them.

“I don’t believe there’s much in them,” he said, “and they’re to
leeward of us, too, or have been, rather; the wind’s getting round a
trifle, I see.”

“That’s just it,” said the captain; “and if it gets round a little
farther we may find out what’s in them before night. Keep a good
lookout, and I’ll be on deck again in half an hour.”

Before the half hour had passed the wind had shifted decidedly, and was
blowing very brisk from where the clouds lay.

“Reef the topsails,” said the captain the moment he came up.

“Ay, ay, sir,” said the mate, and passed the order to the men. But the
winds worked faster than the men could, and before the order was fairly
executed it was time to issue another, and still another followed. All
hands were called, and in another half hour the vessel was driving,
close-reefed, before a constantly increasing gale. “A half a gale,” as
the sailors called it at first, then “a gale of wind,” and by the time
the darkness gathered, “a living gale of wind.”

The captain’s voice could be heard clear and sharp above the tempest
for some time, but at last it was almost impossible for either his or
the mate’s to be distinguished, though there was little to do by that
time but to let the vessel drive.

“I don’t know what’s coming of this, Morton,” said the captain during a
moment’s lull; “but, however we come out, we’ve done all we can.”

“I’m afraid we have, sir; but I can’t think this will last much longer.
It seems to be holding off a little just now; and it would be hard to
see anything go wrong so near home, and after such a run as we have
had.”

But the momentary lull seemed only to have redoubled the strength of
the tempest; the beating and the roar increased until it seemed as if
every sail, close-reefed as it was, would be carried away. At last,
through all the commotion, a sharp, tearing crash and a heavy fall
announced that the foretopmast had yielded to the strain.

“Clear away there!” shouted the captain, and the men sprang forward
with their axes. It was almost impossible to do anything, with the
vessel pitching as if she would go under with every wave, but the work
must be done, and the captain’s voice was heard now above everything.

But something else was not heard: a broken spar, just above the
captain’s head, was swaying back and forth, crackling and snapping for
one instant before it should come down. Only Jake’s eye, raised for one
instant, caught sight of it. To shout or to gesture through the roar
and darkness would have been vain; only a momentary flash of lightning
had shown the danger to Jake. In one instant, almost like the lightning
itself, he was at the captain’s side.

“Stand from under!” he shouted, and pointed upward. The captain sprang
aside, Jake turned to do the same, but a pitch of the vessel destroyed
his balance. The one second taken to recover it, was the one second too
late. With a crash near enough now to be heard over all, the spar was
down, and Jake--? Where was he? Overboard? For one moment it seemed
so, but another flash showed him lying senseless against the windlass.
If he could but have known that it was the captain himself who sprang
toward him, lifted him up, and drew him to a place of safety?

In another half hour, as if the storm with this last cruel blow had
wreaked its vengeance, it had passed away, a fine steady breeze was all
that remained of its force, and the clouds were breaking in rifts along
the sky. And with just such a momentary uncertain light as the moon
was sending through them, Jake’s consciousness was returning; enough,
though to show him that the captain was standing by his bunk and
holding water to his lips. That moment repaid Jake for all the bygone
years that had made his life a wretchedness.

“On hand again, my man? That’s all right! I was afraid you had shipped
for another voyage, and all for my sake too!”

If Jake could only have told him what was in his heart! He would have
given worlds to do it, but he could not speak.

“You saved my life, my hearty, and I shall remember that I owe it to
you,” said the captain again.

Jake made a tremendous effort. He _would_ speak! “No, captain,” he
said, “I owed it to you before! Ever since the night you took me into
your watch. I did not know I _had_ a soul, before that, or that anybody
cared for it if I had, but when I found _you_ did, I believed Another
might. I’ve lived for you ever since, and have tried to live a little
for Him, if He’d accept it, and I’d have died for you any day. If I do
now, it’s all right, and more than I ever thought He’d grant me. It’s
only shipping for another voyage, as you say, and if he takes me safe
to port, you’ll follow.”

When the morning sun rose over a calm blue sea, Jake’s voyage was
ended, and the Divine hand he had reached out to grasp, in the
loneliness of his comfortless bunk, that night so long ago, had steered
him safely home!




CHAPTER XXIX.


At the moment Carter was listening to the few words Jake could summon
strength to utter, Thorndyke sat in a little office Aleck had enclosed
for him at one side of the store, where he could slip away for a little
rest now and then without really leaving his new responsibilities, and
once more Tom and his fortunes came uppermost in his thoughts.

“I wonder what has become of Haggarty,” he was saying to himself. “I
can’t remember when he has been in here. And he didn’t look right, the
last time he came. There was a while he seemed quite himself again,
but he went down lower than ever before long. I wish I could find out
what is going wrong with him. It can’t be anything at the store, for
Hal’s making a trip abroad for the firm, and wont be back for another
month, and I know the senior partners think well of Tom. Indeed, I
suppose he’ll go in himself before long, and yet something is certainly
dragging on him. He looks worried and keeps out of the way. I’ve a
great mind to go up to the house and see if I can get hold of him.”

Thorndyke got up from his easy chair, a very different affair from the
piece of workmanship old Enoch had been so proud of years ago, and went
out into the darkness.

“So tired to-day,” was the entry he had made that morning in his pocket
journal, the only visible friend that ever heard a word about the pain,
or how the battle went; only the great Captain himself heard the rest.
“So tired to-day! Should give out utterly if I could leave the store.”
But he wanted to find Tom! It was a long walk from the store, but that
did not signify; he could rest when he reached there.

No, Tom was not at home and no one could tell him where he might be
found. So he turned and retraced his steps--it is a great thing to be
used to being tired! It was after midnight when Tom passed Halliday’s
and took the same way Thorndyke had gone so wearily over a few hours
ago.

“Good night, Haggarty,” Davis’ voice was saying, “don’t be so down,
man! What can you expect after letting you share our good times so
long, but that we should want a little work out of you some day? All
play and no work makes Jack a poor boy, and you’ll just have to let
us have that signature. If we make a handsome thing out of it, you go
halves, and you certainly couldn’t ask anything more. Perhaps you don’t
realize that you’re a little mixed up with us already, one of us, to
all intents and purposes, and we could make that plain enough if we
chose. We have a claim upon you, mind that.”

Tom plunged on into the darkness hardly knowing or caring which way he
took; not a star was to be seen, not a footstep stirred the stillness
after Davis’ tread had died away.

Suddenly that echo of Aleck’s words came again, ringing in his ears,
“Some One who always sees; who never thinks it beneath him to notice.”

Tom pressed his hands to his forehead. No, no, he could not think of
that! He dared not think of it now! If he had only held on to it once!
If he could only think, now, that he had one friend who cared for him!




CHAPTER XXX.


The clouds that had made the night so dark were all gone the next
morning, and the sun shone brightly as Aleck called at the doctor’s
to get Thorndyke over to the store early; he wanted to look over some
papers preparatory to the new business arrangement, and he knew evening
was no time for Thorndyke to undertake extra work.

Old Joan’s face glowed with pride and delight at what was going on, but
she tried her best to conceal it.

“It’s no favorin’ the wee bairn,” she said, “to fling a’ the doors
wide, and tak him into the very heart o’ the establishment. Ilka
customer that casts a shadow inside kens he has been the heart and soul
o’ it a’ for years, an’ it’s only acknowledging the truth before the
world, to put his name where a’ can read it. And I’m persuaded it is
ower muckle to bring upon a pair o’ shoulders like his the whole burden
o’ sic a house, wi’ the lives and health o’ half the city, and a’ the
wisest o’ the doctors dependin’ on him to fill their needs, and Mr.
Aleck steppin’ aside, and offerin’ nae muir help, whatever the pinch
may be!”

“Well, well, Joan, his head will make up for his shoulders, you know
that very well, and he must have all the help he needs, let Aleck go
when he will. Perhaps he’ll be picking up a junior partner for himself
after he comes to be owner of the whole thing, and that wont take so
many years either, eh, little man?” and the doctor gave Thorndyke a
look that wasn’t at all ashamed to show how he felt about the matter,
at least.

Business hours were early at the Fenimores’, too, and Tom was at his
post as usual, other people would have said, but for himself, he could
hardly have been sure whether he was there or not; he seemed to be
walking in a maze, some terrible dream of perplexity and desperate
resolve, and it grew darker and heavier as the hours wore on.

“Mixed up” with Davis and his associates? One of them to all intents
and purposes? Did Davis dare say that? And if Davis could pretend to a
claim on him he would push it to the utmost, Tom knew.

Then why shouldn’t he let them have the signature if they wanted it,
and if that was the only way out of trouble on every side? A whole life
in that store was worse than a hundred deaths, and if Davis should
give him shares in a “handsome thing,” as he called it, he might go to
the ends of the earth, and have money to send back to those that needed
it. And after all, could a real thief feel much more miserable and low
than Hal had always kept him since they first came together?

He passed heavily by the counting-room as the hours drew to a close,
and started as he heard the senior Fenimore’s voice calling “Haggarty!”

Was the truth discovered? Was there any way in which Davis would dare
play him false and betray him as “mixed up” with his own companions?

“Why, what is the matter with you?” asked Mr. Fenimore, as Tom’s white
face answered the summons. “Are you sick to-day?”

“No, I am not sick,” said Tom. “I was up rather late last night, it is
true.”

“Well, take care of yourself to-night, then; you don’t look right; but
just step in here a moment, if you please. I want to be out for perhaps
a quarter of an hour, if you can remain here. Perhaps you can finish
looking over these letters, and make some minutes of them.”

Tom sat down and leaned his head upon his hands. What was the matter
with it? It throbbed and whirled strangely.

“Yes, I can do it,” he said drearily, as if trying to rouse himself.
“I should despise myself for ever; but I have always had somebody to
despise me. I wonder if it would be a very different thing.”

He glanced at a scrap of paper fallen near him, on which “Fenimore &
Co.” had been trying a new pen half a dozen times. He looked at it
again, and then started wildly to his feet.

“Yes, it would be a different thing! They cannot make me do it, Hal
Fenimore and the whole set of them together! I haven’t the stuff to
make a man of in me, of course, or Hal would never have twitted and
crowded me all my life as he has; but I’ve always been able to declare
to myself he lied when he said I did not do my best, and I always will!
But oh, why do I have to fight like a man, and a brave one too, if I
never was given the soul of one to begin with?”

He seized the letters and began to look them over. Black, white, or
gray were they? He could not tell. He only saw one question written all
over them. Would Davis dare, would he be able to get him into trouble?
He had meant that ugly phrase “mixed up” as a threat, Tom knew very
well; could he manage to bring it to the ears of Fenimore & Co.? It
would be an end to the partnership, drawing pretty near now, if he
should. And what then?

A sudden thought flashed into his mind. If any mercy, even in a dark
disguise, should set him free from Fenimore’s, there was Carter! He
had heard Aleck talk of what Carter was to the meanest man he had on
board. He would go before the mast with him, if he could but find him.
Thorndyke always knew when he came in. He would ask Thorndyke.

“I wont keep you any longer, Haggarty,” said Mr. Fenimore’s voice
behind him; “and indeed I would advise you to call hours ended and take
care of yourself. You’re not well to-day, I am sure.”

Tom turned and left the store. He would go to Halliday’s. The sooner he
got a promise from Thorndyke to let him know when Carter came in, the
better.

Halliday’s was a place where every one seemed to like an excuse to drop
in; there was always some one there enjoying the light and warmth and
comfortable feeling he could hardly have explained to himself.

The early twilight had fallen, and the outside air was bitterly cold as
Tom opened the door, and the feeling of comfort reached even his heavy
heart for an instant, as he stepped inside.

Thorndyke was busy with a solitary customer, and two heavy-coated
policemen stood with their backs to Tom, taking a moment’s respite from
the cold outside, and “warming up” for the next hour’s duty.

“Anything lively in your beat to-day?” asked one of them listlessly, as
he stretched his hands toward the glowing fire.

“Well, not a great deal,” replied the other. “We came down on a nest of
pretty dark-feathered birds, up in ---- street, but we’ve had an eye on
them for some time.”

“Do they belong here?” asked the first.

“No, not more than one of them at least, but there’s a young shoot of
one of the best houses in the city that I’ve had my suspicions they
were trying to make friends with, of late. Can’t quite vouch for it,
though, and wouldn’t if I could, for I don’t think they’ve got any harm
out of him yet, and doubt if they ever would.”

The policemen left the fire, and passed out by an opposite door, the
customer followed, and Thorndyke looked up at Tom. One look was
enough. Tom’s face had told Thorndyke the secret, and Tom knew he had
read it.

“For heaven’s sake, Tom,” said Thorndyke, “don’t stand there looking
like that! There will be some one in in another moment. Here, come into
my office, there’s some one coming this instant. See if this glass of
water will make you look like a live man again, and wait there till I
come.”

The customer wanted a prescription that took time; hours the minutes
seemed to Tom, and then Thorndyke came. Tom looked up at him with a
white, hopeless face.

“_You_ will despise me now,” he said slowly. “Of course you never
thought much of me; you couldn’t, kind as you were, though I _did_ mean
to do as well as I could. But you _were_ kind, and I had rather all the
world knew I had disgraced myself, than that you should have found it
out.”

“Tom,” said Thorndyke, in a low pitying tone that thrilled him through,
“tell me what is the matter here! Are you in trouble about money?”

“No,” said Tom, “or at least, not much; it is worse than that! Those
fellows seemed to be friends, they wanted me with them, and I wanted
friends so much! They never let me see any harm, and it always seemed
so light-hearted and gay when they were; but I knew there _was_ harm,
and I ought to have loathed it all, as I really did in my soul all the
time! They wanted me to forge Fenimore & Co.’s name for them; that was
all their friendliness was aimed at from the beginning, I suppose.
They did not get it, thank Heaven, but they came too near it, nearer
than I ever dreamed they could. And now, if they’ve got into trouble
themselves, and my name is going to be whispered along with theirs, who
is ever going to know how far I went with them? Who’s going to believe
that they kept me half-blinded till the last moment, and that then I
had determined to refuse what they wanted, though I couldn’t see a
bright spot before me for half my life in any other track!”

“Oh why didn’t you come to me?” cried Thorndyke bitterly, and then,
with a sudden check upon himself--“but, Tom, you never would have
turned to friends like these if you hadn’t been in trouble to begin
with. Something has gone wrong with you longer than that, for I have
seen it.”

Tom looked in his face with a troubled cry.

“Hal Fenimore drove me desperate!” he said. “Of course he wouldn’t have
dared if I had had the man in me the rest of you had. I suppose I
hadn’t. I don’t know, but I _had_ to stand up like one, and try to fill
my father’s place, and he never could say I didn’t before; but now he
will know this, and all the rest of the world will hear it from him.”

“How will he know this?” said Thorndyke, a sharp look of pain passing
over his face. “Do you think I would tell him or any other one on the
face of the earth?”

“You wont?” and Tom looked wonderingly but still drearily at him.

“Get into that easy chair,” said Thorndyke. “Don’t stand leaning
against the wall as if a blow had struck you.”

Tom stepped mechanically towards the chair, and sat down in it.
Thorndyke stood before him a moment, and then came closer and put his
arms round his shoulders with a yearning tenderness that sent another
thrill through Tom’s heart.

“Tom,” he said, “Come into my store to-morrow! I want you, and have
wanted you a long time, but I couldn’t say so before. I’ve seen how
things were going with you and Hal, and have longed to put something
between you, if I only could. Of course I couldn’t, so long as you
were with him, but it is time for you to leave there now. Come to me,
and you shall find out whether you are a man! I tell you, Tom, there
isn’t one in a thousand who would have stuck to the ship, and fought
as you have, all these years; and not one in all the thousands I know
who could help me as you can. I need you, and the Fenimores have enough
without you. It will be hard for you to begin all over again, but if
you learn as fast as you did at the professor’s, you shall have your
share in the business at the end of the year. And I’ll see that you
have all you need to keep things easy at home, from the day you come.
Only Tom, why, oh why, couldn’t you have trusted me long ago?”

Changes seem very rapid to passers who only give a glance now and then,
as they hurry by, and the customers at Halliday’s remarked that “the
young people seemed to be rushing things a little,” as they saw Aleck
less and less in the store and Tom behind the counter; then Aleck sent
sometimes in Dr. Thorndyke’s place to a patient, and at last the name
of “Dr. Halliday” making its appearance just below the bell handle over
which “Dr. Thorndyke” had been read so long, and the sign of Halliday
& Thorndyke, which they still considered new, coming down to make room
for “Halliday, Thorndyke & Co.”

“Rushing things!” repeated Tom to Thorndyke one day with a laugh.
“Why it seems to me as if my life at Fenimore’s was somewhere away
back in the dark ages! There’s been more peace and comfort, in these
later days, more steady standing up with the feeling that I was a man,
in every one of them, than I’d had in my whole life together before.
But even peace and comfort don’t tell the whole of it. There’s more
blessedness than that, by a long shot, in feeling that I have got a
close hold on a fellow like you and another like Aleck. There’s no use
saying much about it, though. Words don’t seem to do the business.”

No, they do not. And Thorndyke only gave Tom a look in reply; but
that said “God bless you, old fellow, as you’ve blessed us a thousand
times;” and then Thorndyke himself said, “There goes Aleck again with
that fine turnout of his. He’s getting more practice than he knows how
to turn his hand to, already!”