“Yes, these are only holidays, and these are working hours,” said the boy, with a sigh and a smile, as he began to replace the volumes in the bottom of the trunk.
“I will put them all back again, if you want to go to work, David Lindsay,” she said, as she joined him in the task that soon, at her word, he left her to complete. Then the sound of his hammer kept time to her hands as they quickly stowed away the treasures in the trunk.
Presently the boy stopped hammering and came to speak to her again.
“You are so good to me. You do so much for me, and I do not do any for you. I have not found out what to do for you! Oh, could you tell me what I could do for you?”
She opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment pure and simple.
“Why, why, you are always doing ever so much to please me!” she said.
“Now what? Do just tell me what?” he asked.
She paused in thought so long that he asked again, earnestly:
“What do I do to please you?”
“Oh, I don’t know just what in particular, but you do everything every day, all the time! Why, David Lindsay, if you was to go to heaven and leave me behind, I should just cry my eyes out! Yes, I should just sit down on the old boat here and cry my eyes out!” And moved by the picture her imagination had drawn, she might have given him a practical illustration, if he had not quickly responded: