[to be continued.]
[HOW BILLY WENT UP IN THE WORLD.]
BY ANNETTE NOBLE.
Part II.
It was a spring evening, so very fair that even Billy Knox had taste enough to be pleased with the robins, the hedges, and the May blossoms. He was halting on his way home, under the tree into which he had fallen eight months before. The balloon was not there; its owner had it back long ago.
That Billy had a home is to be accounted for in this way: The evening after Peter, the tailor, took him in to supper, he remained overnight, and after breakfast he went out and milked the cow. He walked to the woods and chopped fuel enough for a week. Then he staid to dinner. During the afternoon he found three cents in what was left of his trousers pocket, and he put that at once into the family treasury. In the days that followed he haunted the next town, a larger one than Langham. Whenever he earned anything he returned with it to the red house with the sunflowers, where, without any talk about it, he came at last to consider himself at home. He brought in as much as he ate. He amused little Ben, and made his life much more exciting. Peter did not care how long he staid so that he paid his way.
On this particular evening Billy seemed in the highest spirits. He leaped up joyously and hung from the branches of the tree. He was prancing about like a colt, when down the lane came a man, but not Peter. This time it was Squire Ellery, who owned the house in which Peter lived. He was a hard-working, quiet-appearing farmer, respected by everybody.
"I ain't going to do it," exclaimed the boy, hastily.
"What are you going to do instead?" asked the man. "Are you going to grow up a loafer and turn out a tramp?"
"No; I have got something prime on hand that suits me exactly."
"What is it?"
"Well," began Billy, "you know the Annerly Minstrel Troupe, don't you?"
"Yes, I know of them."
"They stay in the town all winter, but summers they go travelling around the country. I have been helping them for nothing lately—odd jobs off and on—and they like me. Once when the 'end-man' was sick I took his place at the last minute, and I made so much fun that the manager said he would take me along this summer and make a crack performer of me. He will give me some clothes, and when I get valuable to him he will pay me well. Ain't that something like?"
"Yes, Billy Knox, it is something like—something like a monkey, more like a fool—for you to smut your face, to tell silly jokes, to grin and giggle and dress up in petticoats at night, that you may learn to swear and drink and gamble by day. That is what it is like exactly."
The farmer laid his hard hand on the boy's red head, but his voice was soft as he said, kindly: "Take more time to think it all over, Billy. Remember, I promise to feed, clothe, and send you to school winters, and when you get valuable to me I will also pay you wages. Your work will be hoeing corn and potatoes instead of braying like a donkey or thrumming on a banjo; but you will respect yourself a good deal more. It will be better to wash the sweat of honest labor off your face than to be smearing it into a blackamoor's. I will help you make a man of yourself if you are only willing and ready, Billy."
The boy thought of dull days in the fields, with oxen for companions; then of foot-lights, gay music, and laughter. He rubbed his boots on the grass and muttered, "Much obliged, Mr. Ellery, but I ain't ready for that, nor willing either, in your way of doing it."
"Very well; I have said all I am going to say. I shall never ask you again."
Billy trudged home rather soberly. He opened the cottage door a little later, and at his footfall Ben sprang from the pantry and stood anxiously watching his pockets. Billy knew exactly what it meant. Ben had gone to the cupboard, "And when he got there the cupboard was bare." This had often happened of late. Billy pulled out of one pocket a few slices of bacon, and out of another a tiny paper of tea, saying: "Granny, I have got you some to-night—tea, granny."
"Oh yes. When you were in your cradle, I told my husband you would live to take care of me."
"She thinks you are father," stuttered Ben, as he got out the frying-pan. Soon the whole place was filled with the welcome odor of bacon and tea. Billy cut some bread, and seizing granny's chair, pushed it to the table. He stared at her while she asked her blessing, and idly watched the sunbeams in the rusty lace of her old cap. When she opened her eyes, which were as blue as a baby's, she added, tenderly: "God bless you, dear. You brought us a good supper."
It was seldom that she spoke so coherently, but a bit of a prayer often seemed to clear for a moment her mind, as a precious drop might act in some unsettled mixture.
"What if granny should not have any supper some night when I am gone?" was the thought that rushed into the boy's mind, and into his eyes came tears. His heart was touched by the thought. What preachers and teachers and offers of help had never been able to effect, the trustful gratitude of a feeble little old woman had accomplished. He choked, spluttered, and pretended he had swallowed the tea the wrong way. Then he did like unto sinners the world over—he tried to harden his heart again. He reflected that this was Peter's home and Peter's mother. It was Peter's business to support his own family. It was Billy's business to rise in the world.
After supper he made ready for certain exercises very common in the cabin of late—exercises which he considered likely to improve him in his chosen "profession." He pushed granny's chair back into the chimney-corner, and waited until she dozed before he exclaimed, "Come, Ben!"
BILLY AND BEN REHEARSING.
Poor Ben! his face grew more mournful than ever. It was no longer any fun for him, but he patiently consented, and arranged the stage "properties." He tied on his own and Billy's black masks and their stiff paper collars, wishing much that his own did not so savagely cut his poor little ears. He then sat meekly down at the end of the semicircle of seats, and solemnly got off all the laboriously learned jokes that his stammering tongue could compass. He surrendered himself to Billy in a waltz that made every lock of his lint-white hair fly out straight, and which finally left him breathless under the table legs.
Well, after Ben had been, with some changes of costume, a giraffe, a Zulu, a Broadway belle, and a propounder of conundrums, he became so incapable of being anything else but a tired little boy that Billy relented, and let him lie on the ragged old lounge. In the quiet that followed, the older boy's brain began to work upon a question that worried him much. Should he go on a farm, or should he follow his own fascinating plan? He waked up Ben, and told, in a most engaging way, of the wonderful minstrel career which opened before him, and he reported Squire Ellery's offer, but not his words of disapproval. Now Ben, who was but eight years old, had his own thoughts, and all the more of them that he gave so few away in words.
"If it was me," said little Ben, promptly, if somewhat sleepily, "I would rather be out in the sunlight making th-th-things gr-gr-grow. Wheat fields are so pretty, and I like ca-ca-cattle. They always seem to know me if I co-co-come near them. I never would dance until I got dizzy if I could help it. I think it is si-si-silly; it ain't being a man."
Billy gazed at Ben, somewhat surprised. Here were words almost like Squire Ellery's coming as if they were quoted from out of this Hop-o'-my-Thumb.
"Ben," he said, "you don't really know anything about minstrel shows. Some day I will take you to the regular thing."
"I would rather stay here and read to granny. I should be afraid."
"Stay, then, you little coward!" said Billy, roughly.
Granny dozed and snored softly; the lean cat sprang into Ben's arms, and they slept peacefully together; while Billy walked the room, and peered out of the window-panes. He half decided that he would go to the farmer in the morning. Then he half decided he never would go. At last granny awoke, and said, "Bring the Book and read good words; we have had enough of this day."
Ben would not wake up. He really could not do so after his hard evening exercises; and when Billy shook him, the cat took Ben's part, and scratched Billy resentfully.
"Well, I would as soon read as to hear him stutter over it," said the older boy, getting the Bible, the cover of which had been bright and fresh when granny had been so herself. Now it was as nearly out of its binding as was her soul.
"'The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle,'" read Billy, just where he opened the Book. Then he asked, "Wouldn't they fight?"
"Able but not willing to do what a body ought to do. I don't remember about the fighting. Perhaps it was only to endure something. Now I will go to bed," said granny, forgetting that Billy had read but one verse.
When he was left alone, he sat and pondered on those children of Ephraim until Peter tumbled into the house in his usual state. Then he let Ben sleep on, and he himself helped the tailor to bed, doing it with much less ceremony than the latter approved of.