It had been arranged that Miss Davis should call for Hazel the Monday morning after her school closed and should take her to the station. She was to come at ten o’clock. The day before, Sunday, Scipio, on Granny’s and Hazel’s urgent invitation, took supper with them. The boy felt more conscious of his ill-kept clothes within doors than when with Hazel in the woods, but she had been persistent and he had come. She took him into her room and showed him the shelf with its four books.
“I give them to you,” she said solemnly, and put them in his arms.
He looked bewildered. “You ain’t leaving all these for me?” he asked.
She nodded, “Yes, they’ve got your name in them.”
“I can’t have ’em,” he said, almost crying. “I ain’t any place to keep ’em. The boys is worse than ever now you don’t let me lick ’em.”
Hazel was dumb for a moment. Then she called Granny to her.
The old woman appeared in the doorway and the situation was explained to her.
“Could Scip keep the books here on this shelf?” Hazel asked. “Then they would be quite safe.”
“Why, in course,” Granny replied heartily. “And maybe he’ll read aloud sometimes to me. We could make them out together.”
“I’m going to know how to read,” Scip said resolutely. “I never had nothing to read before, but now I’ve got books and a dictionary.”