At this poor Crow had a sudden relapse of the dry gapes. His arm fell limp and he looked as if he might tumble over.
"Turn 'em out!" The old gentleman shrieked in so thunderous a tone that Crow jumped off his feet, and, seizing the other basket with his little shaking paws, he emptied it upon the heap of figs.
Old Mrs. Cary had come in just in time to see the eggs roll out of the basket, and for a moment she and her husband looked at each other. And then they turned to the boy.
When she spoke her voice was so gentle that Crow, not understanding, looked quickly into her face:
"Let me take him into the library, William. Come, my boy."
Her tone was so soft, so sorrowful and sympathetic, that Crow felt as he followed her as if, in the hour of his deepest disgrace, he had found a friend; and when presently he stood in a great square room before a high arm-chair, in which a white-haired old lady sat looking at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles and talking to him as he had never been spoken to in all his life before, he felt as if he were in a great court before a judge who didn't understand half how very bad little boys were.
She asked him a good many questions—some very searching ones, too—all of which Crow answered as best he could, with his very short breath.
His first feeling had been of pure fright. But when he found he was not to be abused, not beaten or sent to jail, he began to wonder.
Little Solomon Crow, ten years old, in a Christian land, was hearing for the first time in his life that God loved him—loved him even now in his sin and disgrace, and wanted him to be good.
He listened with wandering eyes at first, half expecting the old gentleman, Mr. Cary, to appear suddenly at the door with a whip or a policeman with a club. But after a while he kept his eyes steadily upon the lady's face.