"I'd'n know. Awful sick, they say."
When they passed the Quidmore entrance without turning in Tom began to be startled. "Say! Where we going?"
"You're not going home. Doctor don't want you there. Boss telephoned over to Mrs. Tollivant, and she's goin' to keep you till Mis' Quidmore's better—or somethin'."
The boy was not often resentful, but he did resent being trundled about like a package. If his mother was sick his place was at home. He could light the fire, bring in the water from the well, and do the score of little things for which a small boy can be useful. To be shunted off like this, as if he could only be an additional care, was an indignity to the thirteen years he was now supposed to have attained to. But what could he do? Protest was useless. There was nothing for it but to go where he was driven, like Geraldine or the dilapidated car.
And yet at Harfrey he settled down among the Tollivants naturally. No State ward having succeeded him, his room under the eaves was still vacant. Once within its familiar shelter, he soon began to feel as if he had never been away. The family welcomed him with the shades of warmth which went with their ages and characters—Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant overcoming their repugnance to a born waif with that Christian charity which doubtless is all the nobler for being visibly against the grain; Art, now a swaggering fellow of sixteen, with patronizing good nature; Cilly, who affected baby-blue ribbons on a blond pigtail, with airs and condescension; Bertie, the cripple, with satiric cordiality. If it was not exactly a home-coming, it was at least as good as a visit to old friends. He was touched by being included almost as a member of the family in Mr. Tollivant's evening prayer.
"And, O Heavenly Father, take this young wanderer as Thy child, even as we offer him a shelter. Visit not Thine anger upon him, lest he be tempted overmuch."
At the thought of being tempted overmuch Tom felt a pleasing sense of importance. It offered, too, a loophole for excuse in case he should fall. If God didn't intervene on his behalf, easing temptation up, then God would be responsible. And yet, such was the lack of fairness he was bidden to see in God, He would knock a fellow down and then punish him when he tumbled.
In the midst of these reflections a thought of the Quidmore household choked him with unexpected homesickness. The people who had been kind to him were in trouble, and he was not there! He wondered what they would do without him. He could sometimes catch the man's cruelties and turn them into pleasantries before they reached the wife. He could sometimes forestall the wife's complaints and twist them into little mollifying compliments. Would there be anyone to do that now? Would they keep the peace? He wished Mr. Tollivant would pray for them. He tried to pray for them himself, but, as with his effort of the previous year, the right kind of words would not come. If only God could be addressed without so much Thee and Thou! If only He could read a little boy's heart without calling for fine language! For lack of fine language he had to remain dumb, leaving God, who might possibly have helped Martin and Anna Quidmore, with no information about them.
Nevertheless, with the facile emotions of youth, a half hour later he was playing checkers with Bertie, in full enjoyment of the game. He slept soundly that night, and on Sunday fell into the old routine of church and Sunday school. Monday and Tuesday bored him, because for most of the day school claimed the children; but when they came home, and played and squabbled as usual, life took on its old zest. Only now and then did the thought of the sick woman and the lonely man sweep across him in a spasm of pain; after which he could forget them and be cheerful.
But on Wednesday forenoon, as he was turning away from watching the Plymouth Rocks pecking at their feed, his father arrived in the old runabout. Dashing up the hill, Tom reached the back door in time to see him enter by the front.