“Sure,” was Nicky’s reply. “But I did borrow from them.”
“Do you borrow—a lot?”
“Have to,” Nicky had replied easily. “But I’m goin’-a pay it back soon. I kin work soon, Captain Quiller says he’ll give me a job.”
“Captain Quiller?”
There had not been time there on the porch to recall Captain Quiller’s interest in Nicky, but Barbara vividly remembered that night in the storm, when the little boy had fallen by the roadside from his broken-down “bike,” with that precious can of oil propped up against a mudhill so that it couldn’t spill.
“And Nicky deserves recognition for that,” Barbara was now telling herself. “I do wish I would get an answer to my letter from Washington.”
Conflicting thoughts! First worry about the little Italian boy, then a secret rejoicing in his bravery. Barbara didn’t realize that this was unusual for a girl of her years, that most girls would not have given a second thought to these matters. But she was different, she had been trained, or had trained herself, to think seriously, and so she was but following her natural bent. She wasn’t old-fashioned, she was simply wise.
Meanwhile the other girls were being frankly suspicious. Nothing could persuade them that a criminal of some sort wasn’t being hidden in the little shack that served to shelter Nicky’s family. That was, perhaps, natural enough, when every one knew that the gate-keeper, Marcusi, had been put in jail, and the girls had seen, with their own eyes, how wildly excited those within the house acted when strangers approached.
Then this fine wood carving; who was doing that and why wouldn’t Nicky tell?
Only the feeling of loyalty to Barbara kept the other girls subdued in expressing their opinions. She wouldn’t tolerate a word against Nicky, and so they talked secretly, only.