"Dan," he remarked at length, as they wound slowly up a steep hill, "it's a mean thing, isn't it, to get many, many good things from someone, and never do anything in return, and not even to say 'Thank you?'"
The lad started at these words, and but for the darkness a flush would have been seen upon his face. "What does the parson mean?" he thought. "That was about what Farrington said. To get, and give nothing in return; to be a sucker and a sponger."
But the parson needed no reply. He did not even notice Dan's silence.
"Yes," he continued; "it's a mean thing. But that's just what Tim Fraser's been doing all his life. The good Lord has given him so many blessings of health, home, fine wife and children, and notwithstanding all these blessings, he's been ever against Him. He curses and swears, laughs at religion, and you saw what he did this afternoon."
"'Tis mean, awful mean," Dan replied, as the parson paused, and flicked the snow with his whip. "But maybe he's sorry, now, that he's hurt."
"Maybe he is, Dan. But it's a mean thing to give the best of life to Satan, and to give the dregs, the last few days, when the body is too weak to do anything, to the Lord. And yet I find that is so often done, and I'm afraid it's the case now."
When they reached Fraser's house they found great excitement within. Men and women were moving about the kitchen and sitting-room trying to help, and yet always getting into one another's way. Midnight was taken to the barn, Dan was led into the kitchen to get warm, while the parson went at once to the room where Tim was lying.
Dan shrank back in a corner, for he felt much abashed at the sight of so many strangers. He wanted to be alone--to think about what the parson had said coming along the road. And so Fraser was a sponger, and a sucker too, getting so many good things and giving nothing back. It was mean, and yet what was he himself but a sponger? What was he doing for Nellie and Parson John for what they were doing for him? They gave him a comfortable home, fed, clothed, and taught him, and he was doing nothing to pay them back. How disgusted his father would be if he only knew about it.
For the life of him Dan could not have expressed these feelings to anyone. He only knew that they ran through his mind like lightning, making him feel very miserable. His cheeks flushed, and a slight sigh escaped his lips as he sat crouched there in the corner with one small hand supporting his chin. No one heeded him, for all were too much excited over the accident to take any notice of a little boy.
"I said that horse would be the death of him," he heard a woman exclaim. "Tim's too old a man to drive such a beast as that."