"If I was a big man, I think I should have a nice lot of bread and cheese! I wish I was a man. But I can be a gentleman now, father says so."
He stands with his head on one side and his hands in his pockets, looking down thoughtfully at his gleanings. He is sure that he has got enough now; but he is not quite so sure that he can carry them all at once. However, he boldly grasps the corner of his gay handkerchief lifts the bundle, and staggers under its weight across the uneven ground.
Through the little gate on the other side of the corn field, with his back turned to his own home, Phil pushes his way, and passes into the cool shadows of the lane, just as a servant-maid enters the field by the other gate.
If you wanted to escape observation, you did not enter the lane a minute too soon, little Phil.
Look at the earnest purpose in his blue eyes, and the brave determination with which he sets his teeth and struggles on with his load. A little further and he reaches an old broken gate, standing open and leading to a neglected garden.
Phil stops for a moment and listens. He hears nothing.
Yes; an old hen is clucking with motherly satisfaction over two long-legged chickens that are racing for a fat green caterpillar. That is all.
So Phil is satisfied, and plods up the narrow garden footway until he comes to a standstill at an old cottage door. He has to put his precious bundle on the ground while he stands on tiptoe and raises the latch.
"Who's there? Is any one there?" says a quavering old voice, and the child nods his curly head and smiles, but says nothing.
Pushing the door open very softly, he enters the one room of which the cottage consists. On a bed in a corner lies a very old woman; her thin hands clasped patiently on the counterpane, and her sightless eyes covered with a broad white bandage.