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.