The afternoon was rapidly passing away, and as the sun sank in the western horizon, the blue sky above him became streaked with crimson and gold. Then Edwin noticed that the houses were closer together, but he did not know that it was because he was entering a village and was close to his mother's home.
During the entire journey from the poorhouse the uncle had been silent, but suddenly Edwin saw the right line tightening, and in answer to the uncle's command, "Whoa there, Bill!" they stopped close beside a hitching-post.
Without a word of explanation the uncle sprang lightly to the ground and after tying the horse grasped Edwin's shoulders and roughly placed him upon the ground. Again the boy's decision to endeavor to please was strengthened, and when the uncle started toward the pretty brown house just inside the picket fence and repeated the words he had used at the poorhouse, "Come along," Edwin instantly obeyed.
As they passed in through the open gateway, Edwin noticed pretty flower-bushes. His uncle told him that it was his mother's home. As they stepped upon the porch, Edwin could not refrain from sniffing in some of the delicious fragrance of the honey-suckle blossoms dangling so gracefully here and there from the pillars of the porch, but he was hurried on.
When they entered the house, Edwin looked about in amazement, for everything seemed so very beautiful. Then he saw a woman sitting near a window with a piece of sewing in her hands and three children—a boy about his own size, a girl, and a boy younger—playing on the floor.
"This is your mother," he heard his uncle say.
Without rising or giving the child a word of welcome, the unfeeling woman said to the uncle:
"What do you think of him?"
"I don't know what to think," was the uncle's answer. "He hasn't said a word since Engler turned him over into my care, and I certainly tried hard to get something out of him. All he did until I told him to come along was to stare at me with those large brown eyes of his. While we were riding along, though, he seemed to see everything there was to see, and by the way he kept smiling to himself one would have supposed he was looking at a circus."
Ah, could they have known the deep thoughts that had been passing through the childish mind even upon that trip, they would have understood better how to encourage him. With no consideration for the manner in which Edwin had been shut away from the better class of society and the proper helps that are usually thrown about the young, they at once gave him a low and degraded place in their estimation and pronounced him dull, stupid, and idiotic. All commands were given in a harsh tone and in such a manner that he could not comprehend them.