“Let me see your hands,” said Mrs. Christy, giving up all thoughts just then of ringing the dinner-bell. So Joel had to show them. “O dear me!” she exclaimed. “Now that’s too bad, the cat must have hurt you just awful.”
“Phoh, she didn’t hurt much,” said Joel, trying to edge off, little Davie having the hardest work not to let the tears roll down his cheeks.
“You come right here,” said Mrs. Christy, “an’ wash ’em good an’ clean, an’ I’ll give you some court-plaster. Then, says I, you’ll be all ready to set down an’ eat when Mr. Tisbett is. Come along and take off your cap,” she said to David.
Joel clapped his hands up to his head, then stared at Davie, his black eyes getting bigger than ever. Little Davie, having been unable all this time to look higher than Joel’s poor hands, now stared back at him.
“Oh—oh!” he screamed in the greatest consternation; “it’s gone—it isn’t there. Oh—oh!” and in a minute the whole long piazza was in an uproar that brought every lodger to the scene. Ben’s cap was not only not on Joel’s head—it was nowhere to be seen.
Joel cried steadily all through dinner, the tears running down his round cheeks, without the slightest thought of the boarders staring at him, as he sat back in his chair; and all attempts to make him partake of the nice things that the landlady and “Mandy” piled on his plate, failed, while little Davie softly sobbed next to him, until good Mrs. Christy and the stage-driver were almost at their wit’s end. Finally the old gentleman at the other end of the long table, laid down his knife and fork, and exclaimed “Hem—” in such a loud voice, everybody knew he was getting ready to say something quite important.
“Here, boy—look here. Hem!” It was so very loud now and commanding that even Joel stopped a moment. Seeing this, Davie listened with all his heart. Could anything help them out of this dreadful trouble? Ben’s cap lost! “I’ve got something for you that you’ll like a great deal better’n your old cap; it was too big anyway for you.”
“I wouldn’t like it better,” screamed Joel, a great deal worse than before; “this was Ben’s, and I’ve—lost—it!”
“Lavinia,” said the old gentleman, giving his daughter a little key out of his waistcoat pocket, “you go to my trunk and get out that little black cap.” He dropped his voice so that no one else could hear.
“Not the one you’re taking to Jim!” said Lavinia, whispering back.