"But I feel responsible for him," urged Miss Allison. "Since it happened on our place, and my little nephews brought him here, it seems to me that we ought to have the care of him."
The professor waved her aside, lifting Jonesy"s head as tenderly as a nurse could have done, and motioned the coloured men to lift him up.
"No, no, fraulein," he said. "I have had eggsperience. It is besser the poor leedle knabe go mit me!"
There was no opposing the old man"s masterful way. Miss Allison stepped aside for them to pa.s.s, calling after him her willingness to do the nursing he had taken upon himself, and insisting that she would come early in the morning to help.
Unc" Henry was left to guard the ruins, lest some stray spark should be blown toward the other buildings. "Dis yere ole n.i.g.g.ah wa"n"t mistaken aftah all," he muttered. "Dee was somebody prowlin" "roun" de premises yistiddy evenin"." Then he searched the ground, all around the cabin, for footprints in the snow. He found some tracks presently, and followed them over the meadow in the starlight, across the road, and down the railroad track several rods. There they suddenly disappeared. The tramp had evidently walked on the rail some distance. If Unc" Henry had gone quarter of a mile farther up the track, he would have found those same sliding imprints on every other crosstie, as if the man had taken long running leaps in his haste to get away.
Jonesy stoutly denied that the man had set fire to the cabin. "We nearly froze to death that night," he said, when questioned about it afterward, "and the boss piled on an awful big lot of wood just before he went to bed."
"Then what made him take to his heels so fast if he didn"t?" some one asked.
"I don"t know," answered Jonesy. "He said that luck was always against him, and maybe he thought n.o.body would believe him if he did say that he didn"t do it."
Several days after that Malcolm found the tramp"s picture in the _Courier-Journal_. He was a noted criminal who had escaped from a Northern penitentiary some two months before, and had been arrested by the Louisville police. There was no mistaking him. That big, ugly scar branded him on cheek and forehead like another Cain.
"And to think that that terrible man was harboured on my place!"
exclaimed Mrs. MacIntyre when she heard of it. "And you boys were down there in the cabin with him for hours! Sat beside him and talked with him! What will your mother say? I feel as if you had been exposed to the smallpox, and I cannot be too thankful now that the boy who was with him was not brought here. He isn"t a fit companion for you. Not that the poor little unfortunate is to blame. He cannot help being a child of the slums, and he must be put in an orphan asylum or a reform school at once. It is probably the only thing that can save him from growing up to be a criminal like the man who brought him here. I shall see what can be done about it, as soon as possible."
"A child of the slums!" Malcolm and Keith repeated the expression afterward, with only a vague idea of its meaning. It seemed to set poor Jonesy apart from themselves as something unclean,--something that their happy, well-filled lives must not be allowed to touch.
Maybe if Jonesy had been an attractive child, with a sensitive mouth, and big, appealing eyes, he might have found his way more easily into people"s hearts. But he was a lean, snub-nosed little fellow, with a freckled face and neglected hair. No one would ever find his cheek a tempting one to kiss, and no one would be moved, by any feeling save pity, to stoop and put affectionate arms around Jonesy. He was only a common little street gamin, as unlovely as he was unloved.
"What a blessing that there are such places as orphan asylums for children of that cla.s.s," said Mrs. Maclntyre, after one of her visits to him. "I must make arrangements for him to be put into one as soon as he is able to be moved."
"I think he will be very loath to leave the old professor," answered Miss Allison. "He has been so good to the child, amusing him by the hour with his microscopes and collections of insects, telling him those delightful old German folk-lore tales, and putting him to sleep every night to the music of his violin. What a child-lover he is, and what a delightful old man in every way! I am glad we have discovered him."
"Yes," said Mrs. Maclntyre; "and when this little tramp is sent away, I want the children to go there often. I asked him if he could not teach them this spring, at least make a beginning with them in natural history, and he appeared much pleased. He is as poor as a church mouse, and would be very glad of the money."
"That reminds me," said Miss Allison, "he asked me if the boys could not come down to see Jonesy this afternoon, and bring the bear. He thought it would give the little fellow so much pleasure, and might help him to forget his suffering."
Mrs. MacIntyre hesitated. "I do not believe their mother would like it,"
she answered. "Sydney is careful enough about their a.s.sociates, but Elise is doubly particular. You can imagine how much badness this child must know when you remember how he has been reared. He told me that his name is Jones Carter, and that he cannot remember ever having a father or a mother. I questioned him very closely this morning. He comes from the worst of the Chicago slums. He slept in the cellar of one of its poorest tenement houses, and lived in the gutters. He has a brother only a little older, who is a bootblack. On days when shines were plentiful they had something to eat, otherwise they starved or begged."
"Poor little lamb," murmured Miss Allison.
"It was by the brother"s advice he came away with that tramp," continued Mrs. MacIntyre. "He had gotten possession of that trained bear in some way, and probably took a fancy to Jones because he could whistle and dance all sorts of jigs. He probably thought it would be a good thing to have a child with him to work on peoples" sympathies. They walked all the way from Chicago to Lloydsborough, Jones told me, excepting three days" journey they made in a wagon. They have been two months on the road, and showed the bear in the country places they pa.s.sed through.
They avoided the large towns."
"Think what a Christmas he must have had!" exclaimed Miss Allison.
"Christmas! I doubt if he ever heard the word. His speech is something shocking; nothing but the slang of the streets, and so ungrammatical that I could scarcely understand him at times. No, I am very sure that neither Sydney nor Elise would want the boys to be with him."
"But he is so little, mother, and so sick and pitiful looking," pleaded Miss Allison. "Surely he cannot know so very much badness or hurt the boys if they go down to cheer him up for a little while."
Notwithstanding Mrs. Maclntyre"s fears, she consented to the boys visiting Jonesy that afternoon. She could not resist the professor"s second appeal or the boys" own urging.
They took the bear with them, which Jonesy welcomed like a lost friend.
They spent an interesting hour among the professor"s collections, listening to his explanations in his funny broken English. Then they explored his cottage, much amused by his queer housekeeping, cracked nuts on the hearth, and roasted apples on a string in front of the fire.
Jonesy did not seem to be cheered up by the visit as much as the professor had expected. Presently the old man left the room and Keith sat down on the side of the bed.
"What makes you so still, Jonesy?" he asked. "You haven"t said a word for the last half hour."
"I was thinking about Barney," he answered, keeping his face turned away. "Barney is my brother, you know."
"Yes, so grandmother said," answered Keith. "How big is he?"
""Bout as big as yourn." There was a choke in Jonesy"s voice now.
"Seein" yourn put his arm across your shoulder and pullin" your head back by one ear and pinchin" you sort in fun like, made me think the way Barney uster do to me."
Keith did not know what to say, so there was a long, awkward pause.
"I"d never a-left him," said Jonesy, "but the boss said it "ud only be a little while and we"d make so much money showin" the bear that I"d have a whole pile to take home. I could ride back on the cars and take a whole trunk full of nice things to Barney,--clothes, and candy, and a swell watch and chain, and a bustin" beauty of a bike. Now the bear"s sold and the boss has run away, and I don"t know how I can get back to Barney. Him an me"s all each other"s got, and I want to see him _so_ bad."
The little fellow"s lip quivered, and he put up one bandaged hand to wipe away the hot tears that would keep coming, in spite of his efforts not to make a baby of himself. There was something so pitiful in the gesture that Keith looked across at Malcolm and then patted the bedclothes with an affectionate little hand.
"Never mind, Jonesy," he said, "papa will be home in the spring and he"ll send you back to Barney." But Jonesy never having known anything of fathers whose chief pleasure is in spending money to make little sons happy, was not comforted by that promise as much as Keith thought he ought to be.
"But I won"t be here then," he sobbed. "They"re goin" to put me in a "sylum, and I can"t get out for so long that maybe Barney will be dead before we ever find each other again."
He was crying violently now.
"Who is going to put you in an asylum?" asked Malcolm, lifting an end of the pillow under which Jonesy"s head had burrowed, to hide the grief that his eight-year-old manhood made him too proud to show.
"An old lady with white hair what comes here every day. The professor said he would keep me if he wasn"t so old and hard up, and she said as how a "sylum was the proper place for a child of the slums, and he said yes if they wasn"t n.o.body to care for "em. But I"ve got somebody!" he cried. "I"ve got Barney! Oh, _don"t_ let them shut me up somewhere so I can"t never get back to Barney!"
"They don"t shut you up when they send you to an asylum," said Malcolm.
"The one near here is a lovely big house, with acres of green gra.s.s around it, and orchards and vine-yards, and they are ever so good to the children, and give them plenty to eat and wear, and send them to school."
"Barney wouldn"t be there," sobbed Jonesy, diving under the pillow again. "I don"t want nothing but him."
"Well, we"ll see what we can do," said Malcolm, as he heard the professor coming back. "If we could only keep you here until spring, I am sure that papa would send you back all right. He"s always helping people that get into trouble."
Jonesy took his little snub nose out of the pillow as the professor came in, and looked around defiantly as if ready to fight the first one who dared to hint that he had been crying. The boys took their leave soon after, leading the bear back to his new quarters in the carriage house, where they had made him a comfortable den. Then they walked slowly up to the house, their arms thrown across each other"s shoulders.
"S"pose it was us," said Keith, after walking on a little way in silence. "S"pose that you and I were left of all the family, and didn"t have any friends in the world, and I was to get separated from you and couldn"t get back?"
"That would be tough luck, for sure," answered Malcolm.
"Don"t you s"pose Jonesy feels as badly about it as we would?" asked Keith.
"Shouldn"t be surprised," said Malcolm, beginning to whistle. Keith joined in, and keeping step to the tune, like two soldiers, they marched on into the house.
Virginia found them in the library, a little while later, sitting on the hearth-rug, tailor-fashion. They were still talking about Jonesy. They could think of nothing else but the loneliness of the little waif, and his pitiful appeal: "Oh, don"t let them shut me up where I can"t never get back to Barney."
"Why don"t you write to your father?" asked Virginia, when they had told her the story of their visit.