She shook out Ivy's little blue dress, and began turning it around to find the seam that was ripped. It was drawn together with queer straggling stitches that only the most awkward of fingers could have made. The white buttons on Bud's shirt-waist had been sewed on with black thread, and a spot of blood told where somebody's thumb had felt the sharp thrust of a needle. John Jay's trousers lay at the bottom of the pile, with a little round, puckered patch of calico on each knee.
The tears came into Mammy's eyes as she saw the boy's poor attempt to help. "I'se afeerd he's goin' to die," she muttered in alarm. "I sut'n'ly is. Poah little fellow: he's mighty tryin' to a body's patience sometimes, an' he's made a mess of this mendin', for suah, but I reckon he means all right. He's not so onthinkin' an' onthankful aftah all." She laid the spool and thimble on the window-sill, and folded her hands to rest awhile. There was a tremulous smile on her careworn old face. For one day, at least, John Jay had paid his toll.
CHAPTER VIII.
Boys do not grow into saints in a single night, in the way that Jack's beanstalk grew from earth to sky. Sainthood comes slowly, like the blossom on a century plant; there must be a hundred years of thorny stem-life first.
Mammy soon lost all her fears of John Jay's dying. Although the promise made to George on the haymow was faithfully kept, he could no more avoid getting into mischief than a weathercock can keep from turning when the wind blows.
The October frosts came, sweetening the persimmons and ripening the nuts in the hazel copse; but it nipped the children's bare feet, and made the thinly clad little shoulders shiver. John Jay gladly shuffled into the old clothes sent over from Rosehaven. They were many sizes too big, but he turned back the coat sleeves and hitched up his suspenders, regardless of appearances. Bud fared better, for the suit that fell to his lot was but slightly worn, and almost fitted him. As for Ivy, she was decked out in such finery that the boys scarcely dared to touch her. She had been given a long blue velvet cloak that the youngest Haven could no longer squeeze into. It was trimmed with shaggy fur that had once been white. Ivy admired it so much that when she was not wearing it out of doors she was carrying it around in the house in a big roll, as tenderly as if it had been a great doll.
It was an odd little procession that filed past Uncle Billy's house every day, on the way to the woods for autumn stores. John Jay came first, with a rickety wagon he had made out of a soap-box and two solid wooden wheels. He looked like a little old man, with his long coat and turned up trowsers. Bud came next in his new suit, but he had lost his hat, and was obliged to wear a handkerchief tied over his ears. Ivy brought up the rear, continually tripping on her long cloak, and jolting her white toboggan cap down over her eyes at almost every step.
Nuts and persimmons and wild fox-grapes filled the little wagon many times, and made a welcome addition to Mammy's meagre bill of fare.