She talked to him for some time, and he seemed to listen, yet when she ceased, he said again—
"Keep half the pence for Fwank. There's his message, you know."
This rather puzzled Betty, and Fred would say no more. So she told him that she would lay by the pence carefully, and added—
"By-and-by, when you've saved enough, you shall buy a wooden cross to put at the head of his grave."
"With the message," Fred put in.
"I don't know about a message, but that's all you can do for him, dear, and it well becomes you to do it, for I think he gave his life for yours."
How much or how little of this Fred understood, she could not tell. He often sat thinking, thinking, with a sad and puzzled look, but he did not speak of Frank again. Only when he brought his earnings, carefully divided into two equal portions, he would say—
"Half for Fwank, Mrs. Betty."
After a while he found out, from something the doctor said, that Frank lay in the old churchyard just beside the grave of little Charlie Wentworth. There was a pretty headstone to the little Wentworth's grave, and his poor mother kept it beautiful, with flowers growing round it. Frank's grave was just a plain green mound. But thenceforth, when Betty missed her charge, she was pretty sure to find him sitting beside it. Being a wise old body, she did not interfere, only, after a time, suggested to him to plant flowers on it like those on the other. From that time Frank's resting-place was kept in the most beautiful order. Betty could always spare a few plants for this purpose, and Fred cut the grass with shears, and trimmed and tended it, until it was a wonder for colour and smoothness.
After a time, the boy began to speak more frequently, and the doctor put him to school, where he soon surprised the schoolmaster by his quickness and ability. But he did not care to join the boys on the green, unless they were playing cricket or football. In these, he soon excelled, but for a mere game of romps he did not care at all.