When she had finished there was a little silence. Frank passed his hand furtively across his eyes, and then shook Mrs. Holl warmly by the hand, saying, "Your husband was right, Mrs. Holl, you are a good woman."
Mrs. Holl looked completely amazed, and stammered out, "Lor' bless you, sir! there wasn't anything out of the way in what I did, and there's scores and scores would do the like. Having just lost my own little one, my heart went out to the poor little thing, and it seemed sent natural like, to fill up the place of the little angel who was gone from us. Bless your heart, sir, there weren't nothing out of the way in that, nothing at all, and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy's a good boy, and a clever boy, and he is a comfort and a help to us; a better boy never lived. But we have always grieved sorely over the accident."
"Then he was not originally lame, Mrs. Holl?" Frank asked.
"Dear me! no, sir, not till he were six years old. It happened this way. I was laid up at the time—I was just confined of Mary, she is my eldest girl—and somehow Harry he went out in the street playing. I don't rightly know how it happened; but never shall I forget when they brought him in, and said that a cart had run over him. John, he was in—which was lucky, for I think I lost my head like, and went clean out of my mind for a bit, for I loved him just like my own. They did not think he would have lived at first, for the cart had gone over the lower part of his body and broke one of his thigh-bones, and the other leg up high. It was a light cart I have heard tell, or it must have killed him.
"He were in bed for months, and, if you will believe me, if ever there was a patient little angel on earth, it was surely Harry. He never complained, and his chief trouble was for my sake. At last he got well; but the doctors said he would never walk again, for they thought there was some damage done to his spine; and sure enough he never has walked. He is always cheerful, and keeps up wonderful, considering.
"He has always been given to reading. John made a shift to teach him his letters, and then the children of the neighbours, they lent him their schoolbooks, and taught him what they knew, and in a short time, bless you, sir, he knew more than them all! He would sit and read for hours together. He is wonderful clever, Harry is."
"Well, Mrs. Holl," Frank said, rising, "I am very much obliged to you for your story; but I must be going now, or else I shall be late for school. Tell Harry I am sorry I missed him, and will look in again soon. Have you thought anything further of what I said about Evan?"
"Yes, sir, and thank you most kindly; but father thinks he had better wait another year or so, till he gets a bit older and steadier. As for them books as you was kind enough to send Harry, the boy must thank you hisself; except when he is playing on his fiddle he is always reading at them, and it is as much as I can do to get him outside the doors. He was never very fond of it, for he thinks people look at him; but since those books has come I have regular to take them away from him, put his cap on his head, and push him outside the door. He will be in a taking that he has missed you to-day."
"Well, good-bye, Mrs. Holl, I haven't a moment to lose," and Frank, putting on his hat, made off at a sharp run to school, only arriving just in time to say prayers.
Frank Norris, although a Sixth town boy, was not head of Richards', as Johnstone had been longer in that form, and was consequently senior to him. Johnstone was, however, small and slightly built, and cared little for rowing, cricket, or football. He had gained his place in the Sixth by sheer hard work rather than by talent. He was fussy and irritable, with a strong sense of the importance of his position as a Sixth town boy and head of Richards'. Between him and Frank there was no cordiality, for it irritated him that the latter was upon all occasions appealed to, and his advice asked in everything relating to games, and all matters of dispute referred to him. Frank, on the other hand, although he at all times gave way to Johnstone in house matters, was constantly annoyed by his continual self-assertion and his irritation at trifles. They were the only two Sixth town boys at Richards', but there were three Upper 'Shells,' Harris, Travers, and James, and these ranked almost with the Sixth, for the great demarcation of the School was between the Upper and Under 'Shells,' the former having the right to fag.