"Ruth! you seemed greatly tried just now. Think what you are going to say."
"Oh, of course he must stay, father. Why, the child is the life of the house. We are all so humdrum and mopy, I don"t know what we should do without Benny to keep us moving."
"Mary, daughter--not that I need your answer, my dear."
"He is the only child I shall ever have!" said Mary, simply.
There was silence for a moment, and all thought of the grave where her young heart had laid its treasure.
"Lemuel!"
"I"ve been hard on the child, Father!" said Lemuel. "He"s so different from the rest of us, and he does try me. But mother loved him, and down at the bottom we all do, I guess. I say "stay," too, and I"ll try to be more of a brother to him from now on."
"Son Adam, I have left you the longest time to reflect," said Father Golden. "You are the oldest, and when I am gone it will be on you and Mary that the heft of the care will come. Take all the time you want, and then give us your word!"
Adam turned round; his face was very grave, but he spoke cheerfully.
"I have had time enough, Father," he said. "I was the first that heard that little voice, ten years ago, and the first, except mother, that saw the child; "twould be strange if I were the one to send him away. He came in Christ"s name, and in that name I bid him stay."
"Amen!" said Father Golden.
A silence followed; but it was broken soon by a lively whistle, shrilling out a rollicking tune; the next moment a boy came running into the room. Curly, rosy, dirty, ragged, laughing, panting, little Benjamin stood still and looked round on all the earnest, serious faces.
"What"s the matter, all you folks?" he asked. "I should think you was all in meeting, and sermon just beginning. Ruth, I tied up Kitty"s leg all right; and I"ll dig greens to pay for the gla.s.s, Joe.
Say, Bro"rer-Adam-an"-Lem (Benny p.r.o.nounced this as if it were one word), did you forget it was April Fool"s Day? Didn"t I fool you good?
And--say! there"s a fierce breeze and my new kite"s a buster. Who"ll come out and fly her with me?"
"I will, Benny!" said Adam, Lemuel, Mary, Ruth, and Joseph.
DON ALONZO
"Don Alonzo! Don Alonzo Pitkin! Where be you?"
There was no answer.
"Don Alonzo! Deacon Ba.s.sett"s here, and wishful to see you. Don Alonzo Pit-_kin_!"
Mrs. Joe Pitkin stood at the door a moment, waiting; then she shook her shoulders with a despairing gesture, and went back into the sitting-room. "I don"t know where he is, Deacon Ba.s.sett," she said.
"There! I"m sorry; but he"s so bashful, Don Alonzo is, he"ll creep off and hide anywheres sooner than see folks. I do feel mortified, but I can"t seem to help it, no way in the world."
"No need to, Mis" Pitkin," said Deacon Ba.s.sett, rising slowly and reaching for his hat. "No need to. I should have been pleased to see Don "Lonzo, and ask if he got benefit from those pills I left for him last time I called; what he wants is to doctor reg"lar, and keep straight on doctorin". But I can call again; and I felt it a duty to let you know what"s goin" on at your own yard-gate, I may say. Mis"
Pegrum"s house ain"t but a stone"s throw from yourn, is it? Well, I"ll be wishing you good day, and I hope Joseph will be home before there"s any trouble. I don"t suppose you"ve noticed whether Don Alonzo has growed any, sence he took those pills?"
"No, I haven"t!" said Mrs. Pitkin, shortly. "Good day, Deacon Ba.s.sett."
"Yes, you can call again," she added, mentally, as she watched the deacon making his way slowly down the garden walk, stopping the while to inspect every plant that looked promising. "You can call again, but you will not see him, if you come every day. It does beat all, the way folks can"t let that boy alone. Talk about his being cranky! I"d be ten times as cranky as he is, if I was pestered by every old podogger that"s got stuff to sell."
She closed the door, and addressed the house, apparently empty and still. "He"s gone!" she said, speaking rather loudly, "Don "Lonzo, he"s gone, and you can come out. I expect you"re hid somewheres about here, for I didn"t hear you go out."
There was no sound. She opened the door of the ground-floor bedroom and looked in. All was tidy and pleasant as usual. Every mat lay in its place; the chairs were set against the wall as she loved to see them; the rows of books, the shelves of chemicals, at which she hardly dared to look, and which she never dared to touch for fear something would "go off" and kill her instantly, the specimens in their tall gla.s.s jars, the case of b.u.t.terflies, all were in their place; but there was no sign of life in the room, save the canary in the window.
"Deacon Ba.s.sett"s gone!" she said, speaking to the canary.
There was a scuffling sound from under the bed; the valance was lifted, and a head emerged cautiously.
"I tell you he"s gone!" repeated Mira Pitkin, rather impatiently.
"Come out, Don Alonzo! There! you are foolish, I must say!"
The head came out, followed by a figure. The figure was that of a boy of twelve, but the head belonged to a youth of seventeen. The rounded shoulders, the sharp features, the dark, sunken eyes, all told a tale of suffering; Don Alonzo Pitkin was a hunchback.
His pretty, silly mother had given him the foolish name which seemed a perpetual mockery of his feeble person. She had found it in an old romance, and had only wavered between it and Senor Gonzalez,--which she p.r.o.nounced Seener Gon-zallies,--the other dark-eyed hero of the book. Perhaps she pictured to herself her baby growing up into such another lofty, black-plumed hidalgo as those whose magnificent language and mustachios had so deeply impressed her. It was true that she herself had pinkish eyes and white eyelashes, while her husband was familiarly known as "Carrots,"--but what of that?
But he had a fall, this poor baby,--a cruel fall, from the consequences of which no high-sounding name could save him; and then presently the little mother died, and the father married again.
The boy"s childhood had been a sad one, and all the happiness he had known had been lately, since his elder brother married. Big, good-natured Joe Pitkin, marrying the prettiest girl in the village, had been sore at heart, even in his new-wedded happiness, at the thought of leaving the deformed, sensitive boy alone with the careless father and the shrewish stepmother. But his young wife had been the first to say:
"Let Don Alonzo come and live with us, Joe! Where there is room for two, there is room for three, and that boy wants to be made of!"
So the strong, cheerful, wholesome young woman took the sickly lad into her house and heart, and "made of him," to use her own quaint phrase; and she became mother and sister and sweetheart, all in one, to Don Alonzo.
Now she stood looking at him, shaking her head, yet smiling.
"Don "Lonzo, how can you behave so?" she asked. "This is the third time Deacon Ba.s.sett has been here to see you, and he"s coming again; and what be I to say to him next time he comes? You can"t go through life without seeing folks, you know."
Don Alonzo shook his shoulders, and pretended to look for dust on his coat. He would have been deeply mortified to find any, for he took care of his own room, and prided himself, with reason, on its neatness. Also, the s.p.a.ce beneath his bedstead was cupboard as well as hiding-place.
"He troubles me," he said, meekly. "Deacon Ba.s.sett troubles me more than any of "em. Did he ask if I"d grown any?"
"Well, he did," Mira admitted. "But I expect he didn"t mean anything by it."
"He"s asked that ever since I can remember," said Don Alonzo; "and I"m weary of it. There! And then he says that if I would only take his Green Elixir three times a day for three months, I"d grow like a sapling willow. He hopes to make his living out of me, yet!"
Mrs. Pitkin laughed, comfortably, and smoothed the lad"s hair back with a motherly touch. "All the same," she said, "you must quit hiding under the bed when folks come to call, Don "Lonzo. You don"t want "em to think I treat you bad, and keep you out o" sight, so"s they"ll not find it out." Then, seeing the boy"s face flush with distress, she added, hastily, "Besides, you"re getting to be "most a man now; I want strangers should know there"s men-folks about the place, now Joe"s away. There"s burglars in town, Don "Lonzo, and we must look out and keep things shut up close, nights."
"Burglars!" repeated the youth.
"Yes; Deacon Ba.s.sett was telling me about "em just now. I guess likely half what he came for was to give me a good scare, knowing Joe was away. Now, ain"t I uncharitable! "Twas just as likely to be a friendly warning. Anyway, he was telling me they came through from Tupham Corner day before yesterday, and they"ve been lurking and spying round."
"Some boys saw them, coming through Green Gully, and were scared to death at their looks; they said they were big, black-looking men, strangers to these parts; and they swore at the boys and ordered "em off real ugly. n.o.body else has seen them in honest daylight, but they broke into Dan"l Brown"s house last night. He"s deaf, you know, and didn"t hear a sound. They came right into the room where he slept,--Deacon Ba.s.sett was there the next day, and saw their tracks all over the floor,--and took ten dollars out of his pants pocket. The pants was hanging right beside the bed, and they turned them clean inside out, and Dan"l never stirred."
"My, oh!" exclaimed Don Alonzo.
"Why, it"s terrible!" Mira went on. "Then, last night, they got into Mis" Pegrum"s house, too. She"s a lone woman, you know, same as Dan"l is a man. Seems as if they had took note of every house where there wasn"t plenty of folks to be stirring and taking notice. They got into the pantry window, and took every living thing she had to eat. They might do that, and still go hungry, Deacon Ba.s.sett says; you know there"s always been a little feeling between him and Mis"
Pegrum; her cat and his hens--it"s an old story. Well, and she did hear a noise, and came out into the kitchen, and there sat two great, black men, eating her best peach preserves, and the cake she"d made for the Ladies" Aid, to-day. She was so scare"t, she couldn"t speak a word; and they just laughed and told her to go back to bed, and she went. Poor-spirited, it seems, but I don"t know as I should have done a bit better in her place. There! I wish Joe"d come back! I feel real nervous, hearing about it all. Oh, and her gold watch, too, they got, and three solid silver teaspoons that belonged to her mother. She"s sick abed, Deacon Ba.s.sett says, and I don"t wonder. I don"t feel as if I should sleep a wink to-night!"