“I ain't surprised. I knew what 'twould be when I heard you'd fit 'Lisha,” said Ozias. “You hit my calf, you hit me. It's natur'.” Ozias gave a cynical chuckle; he shifted his load of shoes to ease his right shoulder. “'Lisha's big as two of you,” he said. “How'd ye work it to fling him? Twist your leg under his, eh?”
Jerome nodded.
“That's a good trick. I larnt that when I was a boy. Well, I ain't surprised Robinson has shet down on the shoes. What ye goin' to do?”
“Dun'no',” replied Jerome; then he gave a weak, childish gesture, and caught his breath in a sob. He was scarcely more than a child, after all, and his uncle Ozias was the only remaining natural tower to his helplessness.
“O Lord, don't ye go to whimperin', big man like you!” responded Ozias Lamb, quickly. “Look at here—” Ozias paused a moment, pondering. Jerome waited, trying to keep the sobs back.
“Tell you what 'tis,” said Ozias. “It's one of the cases where the sarpents and the doves come in. We've got to do a little manœuvrin'. Don't you fret, J'rome, an' don't you go to frettin' of your mother. I'll take an extra lot of shoes from Cy Robinson; he can think Belinda's goin' to bind—she never has—or he can think what he wants to; I ain't goin' to regulate his thinkin'; an' you come to me for shoes in future. Only you keep dark about it. Don't you let on to nobody, except your mother, an' she needn't know the whys an' wherefores. I've let out shoes before now. I'll pay a leetle more than Robinson. Tell her your uncle Ozias has taken all the shoes Robinson has got, and you're to come to him for 'em, an' to keep dark about it, an' let her think what she's a mind to. Women folks can't know everything.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jerome.
“You can come fer the shoes and bring 'em home after dark, so's nobody will see you,” said Ozias Lamb, further.
So it befell that Jerome went for the work that brought him daily bread, like a thief, by night, oftentimes slipping his package of shoes under the wayside bushes at the sound of approaching footsteps. He was deceitfully reticent also with his mother, whom he let follow her own conclusion, that Cyrus Robinson had been dissatisfied with their work. “Guess he won't see as much difference with this work as he think he does,” she would often say, with a bitter laugh. Jerome was silent, but the inborn straightforwardness of the boy made him secretly rebellious at such a course.
“It's lyin', anyhow,” he said, sulkily, once, when he loaded the shoes on his shoulder, like a mason's hod, and was starting forth from his uncle's shop.