A considerable silence followed, broken only by the rattling potatoes as they fell. "Mr. Borland, could you give me work in your factory?" the boy inquired suddenly, not pausing for an instant in his work.
"In the factory!" echoed Mr. Borland. "I thought you were going to school."
"I could work after four," replied the boy. "There's two hours left."
Mr. Borland gazed thoughtfully for a moment. "'Twouldn't leave you much time to play," he said, smiling down at Harvey.
"I don't need an awful lot of play," the boy returned gravely; "I never got very much used to it. Besides, I've got a lot of games when I'm delivering little parcels for mother—games that I made up myself. Sometimes I play I'm going round calling soldiers out because there's going to be a war—and sometimes I play I'm Death," he added solemnly.
"Play you're Death!" cried the startled man. "What on earth do you mean by that? I thought no one ever played that game but once," he concluded, as much to himself as to the boy.
"Oh, it's this way, you see—it's one of the headlines in the copy-book that pale Death knocks with—with—impartial steps at the big houses and the little cottages—something like that, anyhow. And it's a good deal the same with me," the boy responded gravely, looking up a moment as he spoke. "It's a real interesting game when you understand it. Of course I'm not very pale," he continued slowly, "but I can feel pretty pale when I want to," he concluded, smiling at the fancy.
Mr. Borland was decidedly interested. And well he might have been. For there was just enough of the same mystic fire in his own heart, untutored though it was, to reveal to him the beauty that glowed upon the boyish face before him. The lad was tall for his years, well-formed, lithe, muscular; dishevelled by his stooping toil, a wealth of nut-brown hair fell over an ample forehead, almost overshading the large blue eyes that were filled with the peculiar shining light which portrays the poetic mind. His features were large, not marked by any particular refinement, significant rather of the necessity—yet also of the capacity—for moral struggle; distended nostrils, marking fullness of life and passion, sensitive to the varying emotions that showed first in the wonderful eyes; a deep furrow ran from nose to lips, the latter large and full of rich red blood, but finely formed, curving away to delicate expression at either side, significant of a nature keenly alive to all that life might have to give—such lips as eloquence requires, yet fitted well together, expressive of an inner spirit capable of the firmness it might sorely need.
"Could you drive a horse, lad?" the man suddenly inquired, after a long survey of the unconscious youth.
Harvey hesitated. "I think I could, sir, if the horse was willing. Sometimes we play horse at school, and I get along pretty well."