[CHAPTER VII.]
HONEST COWLES.
"Work with your own hands, that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing."
TWO years swiftly glided away. Harrison I had now grown to be a stout lad of twelve summers. In his looks he bore a strong resemblance to his father, except that there was an expression of firmness and decision which Mr. Danforth lacked. As Alfred was taller than he, the clothes that he had out-grown were given to Harrison; and thus he was kept well dressed, with little expense to his mother.
The friendship between Harrison and his young friend Ella grew stronger every year. It was he who told her all the difficult words in her reading lesson; and he, too, who again and again explained the simple examples in arithmetic, to suit the youthful comprehension of his young companion. When it was cold or muddy he always found it convenient to go through three squares, in the opposite direction from his school-house, for the purpose of carrying her satchel of books.
Nor was Ella at all behind him in her favors. She kept him well supplied with pen-wipers and invisible pin-cushions; and, at New Years, presented him with a pair of slippers, which, if they were not her own workmanship, were certainly her own selection, and a showy pair they were too. At another time she gave him a game of pictured cards, in which all kinds of trades were represented. Mrs. Haven often remarked that they formed a picture of themselves, as they sat at the little round table, with the cards spread out before them, Ella in the fore-ground, kneeling in her chair to bring herself on a level with her companion, every once in a while leaning back, shaking her golden ringlets from her bright face, while she indulged in a merry laugh at some arch expression of the other; Harrison, with his deep blue eyes shaded by jet-black lashes, his clear, rosy complexion and his frank, good-humored smile, dressed in his neatly fitting clothes, and his neat, shining collar turned down from his well-shaped neck, formed no unpleasant back-ground.
All this time Alfred had not once been home, though his father had been several times to visit him. Sometimes he hoped there was an improvement in the boy; and then, again, the teacher's report was very discouraging. At any rate, it was not thought best to expose him to the temptations of a city, even for ever so short a period.
At the end of two years came a sad change. Mr. Haven suddenly failed in his business, owing to the villainy of one of his partners. This so affected his spirits that he fell an easy victim to a prevailing epidemic, and died, leaving his poor wife in a state bordering on insanity, from the suddenness of the double shock.
Alfred came home to his father's funeral; but finding the restraints of poverty too irksome, ran away and enlisted on board a ship for a long voyage.
It was now that Mrs. Danforth had an opportunity to relieve her grateful heart by kindness and care of her mistress. She tended her through a long and dangerous illness, soothing her agitated nerves by the precious promises of the Bible. Upon her recovery, she it was who arranged the small cottage to which the widow had decided to remove; who prepared the elegant furniture for sale; who bent her own shoulders to bear the burden which would have fallen too heavily upon the new-made widow. Nor was it until every arrangement had been satisfactorily completed that she would leave one who confessed, with tears, that she owed her more than her life; and this was the blessed hope of once more meeting her husband, in that world where there is no sorrow nor parting.