A minute later Mrs. Moreland saw them and hurried after him. He turned at her call, but he would not stop. He went on down the street munching the food he carried, while she stood looking after him, unconsciously shaking her head. In her heart, depression and foreboding almost equalled any hope she had concerning him, yet it was on hope for him that she lived.
Earlier than any of these households, Marcia Peters opened a door that led to a garret of her small house and called: “Jason!” As she stood waiting to hear the sound of a voice that would indicate that the lad was awake, her hand rested against the door casing in a position of unconscious grace. She was unusually tall for a woman, her clothing so careless as completely to conceal her figure. Her hair was drawn straight back and wadded in a tight knot on the top of her head at the most disfiguring angle possible. She did expert laundry work and mending for a living. Her home was a tiny house, owned by the banker, on the outskirts of town. She made no friends and very seldom appeared on the streets.
“Jason!” she repeated sharply, and immediately thereafter she heard the boy’s feet on the floor. A few minutes later he came hurrying down the stairway on the run. If he had stopped to think of it, he might have realized that most of his life he had been on the run. He ran all over town, collecting and delivering Marcia’s work. Between times he ran errands for other people for the nickels and dimes that they paid him. Mostly he was late and ran to school. This continuous running on scant fare kept him pale and lean, but the exercise developed muscle, the strength of which was untried, save on work. There was a wistful flash across his thin, homely face at times, and continuous loneliness in his heart. Being the son of the village washerwoman he had always been snubbed and imposed upon by other children, while he never had experienced the slightest degree of mother love from Marcia. He milked the cow, watered and fed the chickens, and then hurried to the Spellman home to bring a big basket of clothes for his mother to wash. With these he stopped at the grocery of Peter Potter, on Market Street, for packages of food which he carried home on the top of his clothes basket, and in handling them his fingers struck the apple. How good of Jemima Davis! She had tucked in a teacake, a cooky, a piece of candy, or an apple for him before. Next time he must surely thank her. The apple was firm and juicy and tasted as if flavoured with flowers. He must surely muster courage the next time to thank her, but not if Mrs. Spellman was in the kitchen. She might not know that Jemima gave away her apples. He had heard her say in a sweetly inflected voice when money was being raised in church for foreign missions: “We will give fifty dollars”; but he had never known her to give an apple to a hungry boy. Then a thought as delicious as the apple struck him. Maybe——just maybe——He did not even dare think it. But she never had joined the other children in trying to shame him. Maybe——
His position in school always had been made difficult and bitter to him by cruel, thoughtless children. It did not help that he had an excellent mind and very nearly always stood at the head of his classes. In school he had a habit of setting his elbows on his desk, grasping his head with a hand on either side, and, leaning forward, he really concentrated. He knew that his only chance lay in thoroughly learning his lessons. He could not be clothed as were the other children, his mother’s occupation shut him from social intercourse with them; he was not invited to their little parties and merry-makings. If he ever rose to a position of wealth and distinction like Mr. Moreland or Mr. Spellman, it must be through thorough application during school hours, because he had short time outside. The result was that his nervous fingers, straying through a heavy shock of silky reddish hair slightly wavy, kept it forever standing on end, and this, coupled with his lean, freckled face, made him just a trifle homelier than he would have been had his mother carefully dressed and brushed him as were most of the other children.
In school he allowed himself only one distraction. When he had pored over a book until his brain and body demanded relaxation, then he resorted to the pleasant diversion of studying the loveliest thing Number Five afforded. He studied Mahala Spellman. He was familiar with every flash of her eyes, every light on her face, each curl on her head. When she folded her hands and repeated: “Our Father Which art in Heaven,” during morning exercises, she was like an angel straight down from the skies. When she hid behind her Geography and surreptitiously nibbled a bit of candy, or flipped a note to Edith Williams, the laughter on her face, the mischief in her eyes,—Heaven had nothing in the way of angels having eyes to begin to compare with the dancing blue of her eyes,—the varying rose of her cheeks, the adorable sweetness of her little pampered body were irresistible.
Jason hurried into the kitchen. Setting the basket on the floor he snatched off the groceries and laid them on the table and looked around to see if there was anything further he might do that would be of help before he left for school.
“That basket is about twice as heavy as usual,” he said, “I am afraid it means a hard day for you.”
Marcia Peters looked at the boy and in the deeps of her eyes there was a slight flicker that he did not catch. Neither did he notice that one of her hands slightly lifted and reached in his direction; the flicker was so impalpable, the hand controlled so instantly, that both escaped his notice.
“Elizabeth Spellman entertained the Mite Society last week,” she said tersely, “and, of course, she used stacks of embroidered linen and napkins that I must send back in perfect condition. You had better take your books and march to school now, and be mighty careful that you keep at the head of your class. It’s your only hope. Never forget that.”
Jason crossed the room, and from a shelf in the living room took down a stack of books. He never forgot.