Queer old man! All the anger and gruffness disappeared from his manner instantly. His spare face softened and grew genial, his eyes beamed, his smile became cheery. Still, not until Robert had climbed upon his lap and with eager arms clasped about his neck had declared positively, “I know it’s you just the same’s if I saw you, you can’t fool me any longer!” did the truth out.
“Well, I thought it was a pity, seein’ you young folks so smart and ambitious, that you didn’t have more of a lift. I know it ain’t my master’s way to give things outright. He says folks don’t gen’ally like it; but if I give I give, an’ that’s all they is to it.”
“But, dear Mr. Dolloway, why did you so mislead us? You said you had never seen that wagon before you came over here the morning when we found it!”
“An’ I told you the gospel truth. I never had.”
“But you did give it to us?”
“I—I—s’pose I did, seein’ as you ask me square.”
The delayed thanks were now offered with double earnestness, and each word of gratitude was balm to the wounded spirit of the lonely old man.
“I s’pose you think it queer o’ me, ma’am, to have showed so much feelin’ ’bout a trifle like that. But I don’t lay no claim to perfection. I like to give things, but—I like to be thanked for ’em when I do. I s’pose that’s carnal human natur’, but it’s the truth. An’ I did enjoy the surprise of you all, a plaguy sight; but when you got to thinkin’, an’ nothin’ didn’t seem to alter the notion ’at nobody ’ceptin’ Mr. Brook or his sister could do a generous action, I was mad. I ain’t nobody but a servin’-man, an’ I don’t make no pretence. But I am what I am, in the right place, or the Lord wouldn’t ’a’ put me there. An’ ’cause I am a servant don’t hender my givin’ a present, now and again, if I want to, does it?”
“In one way—no. But, my dear sir, I feel as if this were too rich a gift. You may have let your generosity silence your prudence. Ought you to do so much for us? I hope you understand I mean this just as gratefully.”
“I do understand you, ma’am. An’ I will say that I never met a lady as was as considerate of the feelin’s of others as you be. Not even exceptin’ Miss Brook, as is a lady every inch of her. But you needn’t worry about the cost of that wagon. It didn’t take but one month’s wages to pay for it. A pity I couldn’t do that much for old Mr. Conrad’s sake. Though he was young Mr. Conrad when I knew him; and many’s the bout we all have had together,—Master and him an’ me. ‘Waive formality for once,’ Master’d say; an’ down we’d sit to as big a dinner as the city of New York could furnish. You see fellows that was Forty-Niners together did get a little mixed up as to who was boss and who wasn’t when they got to talkin’ over old times. Nothin’ like a ‘Vigilance Committee’ to take the nonsense out o’ folks, I tell you!”