“If you please,” she began, addressing herself to the Judge, “I’ve jest been down to Cold Spring after a bucket o’ water, for I feel mighty like a strong cup of hyson this mornin’, bein’ I was so broke of my rest, and the pump won’t make such a cup as Cold Spring——”
“Never mind the pump, but come to the point at once,” interposed the Judge, glancing toward the basket with a presentiment that what she had to tell concerned the little Mildred.
“Yes, that’s what I’m coming to, ef I ever get thar. You see, I ain’t an atom gossipy, but bein’ that the Thompson door was wide open, and looked invitin’ like, I thought I’d go in a minit, and after fillin’ my bucket with water,—though come to think on’t, I ain’t sure I had filled it,—had I? Let me see,—I b’lieve I had, though I ain’t sure——”
Rachel was extremely conscientious, and no amount of coaxing could have tempted her to go on until she had settled it satisfactorily as to whether the bucket was filled or not. This the Judge knew, and he waited patiently until she decided that “the bucket was filled, or else it wasn’t, one or t’other,” any way, she left it on the grass, she said, and went into Thompson’s, where she found Aunt Hepsy “choppin’ cabbage and snappin’ at the boy with the twisted feet, who was catching flies on the winder.”
“I didn’t go in to tell ’em anything particular, but when Miss Hawkins, in the bedroom, give a kind of lonesome sithe, which I knew was for dead Bessy, I thought I’d speak of our new baby that come last night in the basket; so I told ’em how’t you wanted to send it to the poor-house, but I wouldn’t let you, and was goin’ to nuss it and fotch it up as my own, and then Miss Hawkins looked up kinder sorry-like, and says, ‘Rather than suffer that, I’ll take it in place of my little Bessy.’
“You or’to of seen Aunt Hepsy then,—but I didn’t stay to hear her blow. I clipped it home as fast as ever I could, and left my bucket settin’ by the spring.”
“So you’ll have no difficulty in ascertaining whether you filled it or not,” slyly suggested Richard. Then, turning to his father, he continued, “It strikes me favorably, this letting Hannah Hawkins take the child, inasmuch as you are so prejudiced against it. She will be kind to it, I’m sure, and I shall go down to see her at once.”
There was something so cool and determined in Richard’s manner, that the Judge gave up the contest without another word, and silently watched his son as he hurried along the beaten path which led to the Cold Spring.
Down the hill, and where its gable-roof was just discernible from the windows of the Beechwood mansion, stood the low, brown house, which, for many years, had been tenanted by Hezekiah Thompson, and which, after his decease, was still occupied by Hepsabah, his wife. Only one child had been given to Hepsabah,—a gentle, blue-eyed daughter, who, after six years of happy wifehood, returned to her mother,—a widow, with two little fatherless children,—one a lame, unfortunate boy, and the other a beautiful little girl. Toward the boy with the twisted feet, Aunt Hepsy, as she was called, looked askance, while all the kinder feelings of her nature seemed called into being by the sweet, winning ways of the baby Bessy; but when one bright September day they laid the little one away beneath the autumnal grass, and came back to their home without her, she steeled her heart against the entire world, and the wretched Hannah wept on her lonely pillow, uncheered by a single word of comfort, save those her little Oliver breathed into her ear.
Just one week Bessy had lain beneath the maples when Rachel bore to the cottage news of the strange child left at the master’s door, and instantly Hannah’s heart yearned toward the helpless infant, which she offered to take for her own. At first her mother opposed the plan, but when she saw how determined Hannah was, she gave it up, and in a most unamiable frame of mind was clearing her breakfast dishes away, when Richard Howell appeared, asking to see Mrs. Hawkins. Although a few years older than himself, Hannah Thompson had been one of Richard’s earliest playmates and warmest friends. He knew her disposition well, and knew she could be trusted; and when she promised to love the little waif, whose very helplessness had interested him in its behalf, he felt sure that she would keep her word.