She spoke with great earnestness, and put one of her hands on Jeff’s arm to emphasize her words. Her face was very close to his and her blue eyes looked at him just as no other eyes had ever rested upon him. Mrs. Taylor had always been angry when reproving the young scamp, and usually rounded her reproof with a box on the ear. His teacher whaled him as he said, while Mark, the only one who claimed jurisdiction over him, smiled at his dexterity while scolding him for it. Alice took a different course, appealing to his better nature, and, after listening for a few moments to her, he said, “I never meant no harm. I called it sleight of hand, but I b’lieve I’ll quit it. Nobody ever talked to me this way before, makin’ me feel ashamed. Miss Taylor cuffs me when she jaws; the teachers thrash me, and Mr. Hilton scolds with one corner of his mouth and laughs with the other. Yes, I’ll quit it, if you say so; but what’ll you bet I can’t stand on my head in the boat and not tip it a bit?”
He seemed resolved upon showing his accomplishments in some way, but Alice declined taking the last bet, as she had the first, and was rather glad to find herself on terra firma. The mention of Mr. Hilton reminded her that possibly there was a chance for her to learn something of the inmates of the hotel. A boy like Jeff would be likely to tell the truth. First she asked him of himself,—how old he was, and where he was born. He told her his age as nearly as he could, but did not know where he was born; nowhere, he guessed. His father and mother died in Boston and he lived anywhere, in alleys and streets, turning summersaults in the day time and sleeping at night in a big old hogshead that had drifted ashore on the wharf. He concluded his story by saying, “Mr. Hilton found me and brought me to the hotel.”
“Who is Mr. Hilton?” Alice asked, and Jeff replied, “Why, he’s Mark, the clerk, who sees to things and insults with Mrs. Taylor about everything. He put that rose on your table last night. Did you smell it?”
Alice had noticed it, and said so, while Jeff continued, “He got it off of a grave down in the cemetery, where some of his kin is buried. I seen him, for I was in the brook close by, trying to catch some polywogs.”
Alice wanted to ask what polywogs were, but would not interrupt the boy, who went on: “He met you last night, don’t you know, and carried you into the house.”
“Not me; that was my cousin. You helped me,” Alice said, and asked next, “Are there any other gentlemen in the hotel beside Mr. Hilton?”
“My, yes; I guess there is,” and Jeff warmed up at once. “There’s Mr. Mason from Boston. Awful swell; takes a bath and has his shoes blacked every morning, and wears a clean shirt and collar and cuffs every day. I only wear one shirt a week. Mr. Hilton wears three.”
Alice thought it possible that neither Mr. Hilton nor Craig Mason would care for her to have a more intimate knowledge of their habits, and began to speak of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Here, too, Jeff was very communicative. “Mr. Taylor was fust rate, and let a feller alone,” he said. Some called him shiffless, but he liked that kind of shiffless that wasn’a allus pitchin’ in to a chap. Miss Taylor was boss, and smart as chain lightnin’, only she couldn’t git round quite so quick, she was so big,—tipped the scale at two hundred. He liked her some and should like her more if she didn’t make him go to Sunday-school and learn twenty verses in the Bible beside. He was through with the Sermon on the Mount, and was tackling Nicodemus, which was easier.
They had reached the hotel by this time, and with every step Alice’s interest had increased in Jeff, whose admiration for her had kept pace with her interest in him. He offered to go with her to the woods and show her a big hornet’s nest and a mud turtle’s bed in the pond, of which no one knew but himself, and he made her take half of the lilies, refusing any remuneration at first. Then, suddenly, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he said, “If you want to pay me so bad give me a dime and we’ll call it square.”
Alice put her hand in her pocket for her purse, which was gone, with her handkerchief and her gloves, which she had taken off when she helped pull in the lilies. Before she could utter an exclamation of surprise, Jeff, who was watching her, had turned a summersault and was on his feet with her missing articles in his hand.