“And why not you? Don’t you know every one has to serve his time with these things, to get ready for other work by-and-by?”
“All but—”
“Tut!” said the doctor, getting up quickly and sending his last bunch of grass stalks fluttering out on the wind. “Who taught you to say that? Whoever it was made a great mistake, or wanted to cheat you out of your rights, I don’t know which. The world was made for you, just as much as for any one else, and you are to have your share, and find your place in it with the rest. Will you remember that, my little man?” and he stopped for a look in Creepy’s face.
He could not see that Creepy’s heart was throbbing his breath away with all the watching and the wonder, and the thanks that had gathered up there since morning, and with hearing such words spoken, although they didn’t seem any more real than yesterday.
But he saw how it was swelling up the veins in his forehead, and drooping the eyelids over the great eyes, and he did not wait for an answer, but walked away and paced back and forth over the yellow carpet. Then he sat down on the rustic seat again, and chatted as he had the day before, of what lay out in the world, and along the trout-stream; then he said Good-by, had his talk with Mrs. Ganderby, found Enoch and Sue, and settled matters with them, and was off. And no one suspected that he had been up and at work all the night before, and had not been able to catch a moment from the duties of the day, until just then, and that he still saw work ahead to stretch well on into the night, before there was a chance of rest.
Hal Fenimore and Tom Haggarty had but just commenced their evening with library fires crackling and companions gay enough to atone for all the ups and downs of the day’s school, when Creepy slipped off to his little bed, thankful to lie down and see if his heart would not stop that beating that was tiring him so, and if the pain in his back would let him lie still enough to straighten out all the thoughts that were making such confusion in his brain.
What had the doctor said? There was a place in the world and a share in it for him, as well as the rest? But the place must be just here, under the old butternut; it couldn’t be anywhere else. And he was to grow stronger, and the pain to grow less, every month until spring, and then begin to go to school like other boys. What a strange sound that had! It was pleasant to have the doctor say so; it seemed like a dream; but one had always to wake up from dreams, and find things were not so. “All boys go to school.” All but—ah, the doctor did not like to have him say that. At all events, he was to have a book and study; and he was to see with his own eyes what lay beyond the turn in the road. Enoch was to see to his going, and Sue and Mrs. Ganderby were to do other things, and the doctor was coming again. All these people thinking of him! It was of no use trying to understand it; if he could only go to sleep! And yet he feared the dream would be gone when he waked in the morning; he should find not a word of all to be true.
He shut his eyes just for a moment as he thought, but when he opened them again the sun was shining through the patched curtain at the window, and the night was gone. Had the dream taken flight with it? There was but one way to find out, so he dressed himself with trembling fingers and crept noiselessly out towards his crooked chair. Enoch was there before him. Tools lying all around on the yellow leaves, and the old carpenter so busy with his work that he did not hear Creepy’s footsteps rustling over them too. The sun had not been fairly above the horizon before Enoch was off in search of those wheels, belaboring himself at every step of the way for a stupid blockhead that could make a chair for a cripple, and never have the idea of putting on a running-gear come into his head, though he had it before his eyes every day that the one it was made for never went outside the fence from one year’s end to another! But where would the money have come from if he had thought of it ever so long ago? Money makes most wheels turn in this world, and it’s not strange if a five-dollar bill put into your hand should bring some of them round to a lame child’s corner once in a way, as well as elsewhere. A likely young man, that doctor, and wise enough to know where to choose the right workman to do his job; that was more than could always be said of them, much as they might know about people that were laid on their beds and good for nothing!