With heroic boldness David pushed his skees up to the baseboard of the door and hammered hard on the brass knocker. Once, twice, three times he knocked. Then he heard soft feet inside and the turning of the key in the lock. In another minute the door opened, letting in a generous fall of snow and disclosing a tall, oldish woman in black, with very black hair and big, sorrowful black eyes.
“Madre de Dios!” she exclaimed in a soft voice full of surprised wonder. “A niño—here, in this freeze country!”
“If you please,” began David, politely, “I came—I came—”
But he did not finish. For the life of him he could not have told just why he had come.
“Entre, come!” And the woman drew him in and closed the door behind him. “A boy! It may be that it will put again the heart in Alfredo to see a boy. Come, chico!”
She opened another door at the end of a hall and led him into a bare, cold, cheerless room. Half a dozen black bentwood chairs stood with backs against the walls; the two rockers of the same faced each other at opposite sides of the fireplace; and between them stretched a cot covered with heavy blankets. A half-hearted fire burned on the hearth, and watching it listlessly from the cot lay a boy about twice his age, David thought.
“See, Alfredo! See chicito mio, who come here,” the woman called. And the sick youth turned his head slowly to look at them.
David saw a thin, colorless face with great, black eyes. They had the same look that was in the woman’s eyes, only the woman did not look sick, only sad. As the boy saw David he smiled in a pleased, surprised way, and held out a thin, white hand in welcome. But the hand was so thin David was almost ashamed to put out his own broad, brown little fist to take it. He compromised by leaving on his mitten—and he shook it very gently.
“Ah, it is good,” said the boy, simply. “I am glad to see you.”
“Thank you,” David beamed. He was glad he had come. For here there were things that he could do, and first of all he’d tackle the fire.