"What's that you say, sir?"
Crow repeated it. And then he added, for full confession:
"I picked green figs heap o' days, and kivered 'em up wid ripe ones, an' sol' 'em to a white 'oman fur perserves." There was something desperate in the way he blurted it all out.
"The dickens you did! And what are you telling me for?"
He eyed the boy keenly as he put the question.
At this Crow fairly wailed aloud: "'Caze I ain't gwine do it no mo'." And throwing his arms against the door-frame he buried his face in them, and he sobbed as if his little heart would break.
For a moment old Mr. Cary seemed to have lost his voice, and then he said, in a voice quite new to Crow:
"I don't believe you will, sir—I don't believe you will." And in a minute he said, still speaking gently: "Come here, boy."
Still weeping aloud, Crow obeyed.
"Tut, tut! No crying!" he began. "Be a man—be a man. And if you stick to it, before Christmas comes, we'll see about those pockets, and you can walk into the new year with your head up. But look sharp! Good-bye, now!"