Little Ben looked at his companion curiously.
"I thought you were very happy here, sir," he said, "with plenty to eat every day. You are free to go to the cupboard whenever you are hungry, but often I am unable to sleep because I am so hungry. You never go to bed feeling that way, do you, Mr. Davy?"
"No," he replied, almost smiling at the boy's idea that anyone who had plenty to eat must be entirely content; "but I am a shiftless sort of a man, and I don't get on very well. I always want to do what is right and fair, but somehow I don't always do it; I sometimes think, though, that I am more unjust to myself than to anyone else. It causes me a good deal of regret that I am not able to help such as you, Ben. If I were able, I would like to buy you a suit of clothes."
"Summer is coming on, sir, and these will do very well," the boy replied.
"Yes; but you were very thinly clad last winter, Ben, and oftentimes I could not sleep from thinking of how cold you were when out in the fields with the stock. If ever there was a good boy, you are one, Ben; but you are not treated half so well as the bad boys I know. This is what worries me, as hunger worries you."
"I am sorry to hear you are poor, sir," little Ben said. "Not that I want you to do more for me than you have done, but you have always been so kind to me that I thought you must be rich to afford it. You always have something for me when I come to town, and I am very thankful to you."
What a friendless child, Davy thought, to consider what he had done for him the favor of a rich man! A little to eat, and small presents on holidays; he had been able to do no more than that; but, since no one else was kind to the boy, these were magnificent favors in his eyes.
"On which cheek did the lady kiss me, Mr. Davy?" the boy inquired later in the night.
"On this one," Davy replied, touching his left cheek with his finger tips.
"I was thinking it was that one," little Ben continued. "There has been a glow in it ever since you told me. I should think that the boys who have mothers who do not hate them are very happy. Do you know whether they are, Mr. Davy?"