That Sunday was full of small events to Dirk; at least they are small enough when one puts them on paper, though I admit that they looked large to him. Several people interested themselves in his welfare.
“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Saunders, “I suppose his mother tried to do for him. Just as likely as not she had a clean shirt for him of a Sunday morning.”'
You will perceive that Mrs. Saunders, though all her life a resident of a large city, was not very well-acquainted with the abject poor. In point of fact, Dirk Colson had had no extra clothing for his mother to make clean. But Mrs. Saunders, full of the motherly thought, yet finding no trace of a shirt in the bundle of rags that Dirk had brought with him, went down one day into the depths of an old trunk, and brought to light and mended and washed and ironed a shirt that had long been laid aside.
It lay in its purity on a chair at the foot of Dirk's bed on Sabbath morning. He lay still and looked at it for a while, then arose and gave such careful attention to the soap and water as was new to him, and arrayed himself in the clean linen.
His clothes were whole and clean. Mr. Roberts had seen to it that he went respectably dressed to his mother's funeral.
A tap at his door a little later, and young Ried appeared, shoe-brush and blacking-box in hand.
“Want to borrow?” he said, in the careless tone of one who might have supposed that the blacking of his boots was an every-day matter to this boy. “I always keep my own; it is cheaper than to depend on the street boys.”
Dirk said nothing at all, but reached forth his hand, and took the offered tools, and the hint which came with them. When he went down to breakfast his boots shone, and his fresh paper collar was neatly arranged; altogether he was not the boy to whom I first introduced you. I am not sure that Policeman Duffer would have recognized him. A collar and a necktie make a great difference in some people's personal appearance. Dirk wondered a little as to where the box of paper collars came from. The necktie he had just found lying in the bottom of the box. It was the mate of the one young Ried wore, but that told nothing, for both were simple and plain, and could be bought by the dozens in any furnishing store.
It is small wonder that the boys in the class looked at him. Nimble Dick wore at first a roguish air, but a sudden memory of Dirk's face when he turned away from his mother's grave came in time. Open graves are not easy things to forget.
Dirk went to the church that day; went with young Ried by invitation, and sat in the pew behind Mr. Roberts.