"'Tisn't that, 'tisn't that," said Matty. "He'll never walk—he's lame—deformed!"
"What do you mean?" thundered the doctor, reeling for an instant like a drunken man; then, recovering his composure, he listened while Matty told him what she meant.
At that moment Maude drew Louis into the room, and, taking the child in his arms, the doctor examined him for himself, wondering he had never observed before how small and seemingly destitute of life were his lower limbs. The bunch upon the back, though slight as yet, was really there, and Matty, when questioned, said it had been there for weeks, but she did not tell of it, for she hoped it would go away.
"It will stay until his dying day," he muttered, as he ordered Maude to take the child away. "Louis deformed! Louis a cripple! What have I done that I should be thus sorely punished?" he exclaimed, when he was alone with his wife; and then, as he dared not blame the Almighty, he charged it to her, until at last his thoughts took another channel. Maude had dropped him—he knew she had, and Matty was to blame for letting her handle him so much, when she knew 'twas a maxim of his that children should not take care of children.
He had forgotten the time when his worn-out wife had asked him to hire a nurse girl for Louis, and he had answered that "Maude was large enough for that." On some points his memory was treacherous, and for days he continued to repine at his hard fate, wishing once in Matty's presence that Louis had never been born.
"Oh, husband," she cried, "how can you say that! Do you hate our poor boy because he is a cripple?"
"A cripple!" roared the doctor. "Never use that word again in my presence. My son a cripple! I can't have it so! I won't have it so! for 'tis a max—"
Here he stopped, being for a second time in his life at a loss what to say.
"Sarve 'em right, sarve 'em right," muttered John, whose quick eye saw everything. "Ole Sam payin' him off good. He think he'll be in the seventh heaven when he got a boy, and he mighty nigh torment that little gal's life out with his mexens and things; but now he got a boy, he feel a heap like the bad place."
Still much as John rejoiced that his master was so punished, his heart went out in pity toward the helpless child whom he almost worshiped, carrying him often to the fields, where, seeking out the shadiest spot and the softest grass for a throne, he would place the child upon it, and then pay him obeisance by bobbing up and down his wooly head in a manner quite as satisfactory to Louis as if he indeed had been a king and John his loyal subject. Old Hannah, too, was greatly softened, and many a little cake and pie she baked in secret for the child, while even Nellie gave up to him her favorite playthings, and her blue eyes wore a pitying look whenever they rested on the poor unfortunate. All loved him seemingly the more—all, save the cruel father, who, as the months and years rolled on, seemed to acquire a positive dislike to the little boy, seldom noticing him in any way except to frown if he were brought into his sight. And Louis, with the quick instinct of childhood, learned to expect nothing from his father, whose attention he never tried to attract.