Mrs. Leslie smiled at Johnny’s conclusion; she did not think that was the reason, and she said,—
“He looks perfectly well, dear. He is growing fast, and so getting thinner, but I don’t see any signs of ill health about him.”
“There’s something about him,” said Johnny, in puzzled tones, “I never knew him to miss a chance of saying one of his sharp things, till lately; in fact, I used to think he was watching out for them!”
Johnny had not been mistaken in thinking so. Somebody has said that if we look to the very root of our ill-will against anyone, we shall find that it is envy; and though this does not, perhaps, always hold good, it certainly does in many instances. Ever since Jim had known Johnny, there had been in his heart an unacknowledged feeling of envy, of which he was himself only dimly aware. Why should Johnny have been given that safe, pleasant home, with a father and mother and sister of whom he could be both fond and proud, while he, Jim, was left to fight for even his daily bread, with no ready-made home and friends, such as most people had? For even among the boys with whom he was chiefly thrown, many had some place which they called home, and somebody who cared, were it ever so little, whether they lived or died. He persuaded himself that it was because Johnny was “foolish,” and “needed taking down” that he said disagreeable things to him, but, since Taffy died, he had, as he expressed it to himself, been “sorting himself out, and didn’t think much of the stock.”
His face, this morning, wore a troubled look, which Mrs. Leslie was quick to notice, but she had learned that, in dealing with Jim, she must use very much the same tactics that one uses in trying to tame some little wild creature of the woods—a sudden attack, or even approach, scared him off effectually; and although now he no longer ran, literally, as he had done at first, he would take refuge in silence, or an awkward changing of the subject.
She had stopped asking him to take meals with them, when she saw how it distressed him. He was painfully conscious of his want of training, and shrank from exposing it, and he was shrewd enough to know that there is no surer test of “manners” than behavior at the table.
But the evening visits, begun with the making of the gardens, and the reading and singing lessons, she had managed to have continued after the gardens were frostbitten, and the early nightfall made the evenings long. Yet even about this she had been obliged to exercise a great deal of tact and care. Jim had announced that the lessons were to end the moment there was no more work for him to do, and she knew that he meant what he said, so, after thinking a good deal, she appealed to Mr. Leslie for help.
“You don’t happen to want kindling-wood just now, perhaps?” he asked, after thinking a little.
“Don’t I?” she replied. “Why, we always want kindling-wood! I believe that fair kitchen-maid could burn ‘the full of the cellar,’ as she would put it, in a week, if she could get that much to burn.”
“Oh, well then,” said Mr. Leslie, cheerfully, “It’s all right. I happen to know where I can get a wagon load of pine logs and stumps, in comparison with which a ram’s horn is a ruler! I should think half a stump, or one log, an evening might be considered a fair allowance, and you shall have them before the gardens are done for, to make sure. You can explain to your muscular scholar that, by having a few days’ allowance chopped at a time, the reckless maiden can be kept within bounds. But Jim will have my sympathy when he comes to those stumps!”