Kate stood irresolute for a moment, then she went away, leaving Frank’s dinner on the ground. He saw her put the basket down and poise the dish of berries on its top. He kept along the row he was hoeing until he reached the stone wall; then, instead of following it back, his hungry desire for the contents of the basket overcame his desire for martyrdom, and he went back, hoe in hand, to the place where Kate had left it, but no basket could he find.
It was gone.
Kate, growing more and more indignant at her brother’s ingratitude, as she went on her way toward the house, had yielded to the sudden temptation to return and pick it up. Frank had not looked around once, and thus had not seen Kate, nor heard her exclaim as she gathered it in her hands, “The bad, naughty boy shall not have it at all.” And the “bad, naughty boy” did not get it at all.
As Kate, warm and panting from the haste she had made, reached the end of the field and was going by a bit of hedge, she saw a man sitting on the ground.
He looked to Kate very hungry. At all events she knew he must be very tired, for he was leaning his head against a tree trunk and was fanning himself with a straw hat. His eyes were closed, and as Kate moved along without making much noise, he did not hear a sound until she spoke to him.
“What is the matter with you? Are you sick?” she questioned. She might quite as well have asked him if he was the man in the moon, for he did not comprehend one word of English. He reached forth his hands for the food she carried, doubtless thinking that Kate was the good angel who had been sent in answer to his great need.
The man had been very ill in a hospital at New Haven. As soon as he could walk a little, he had made his escape, without having strength enough to reach the place where he wished to be. Having seen Mr. Hallock’s house, he hoped to gain it before sitting down to rest, but had not been able to get there.
He devoured Frank’s dinner with such eagerness that Kate began to wonder whether or not he would leave the fork and spoon. She felt quite happy when at last he returned them to the basket, and asked, by signs, if he should carry it to the house for her. She shook her head, and took it from him. After going on a few steps, she turned to look at the man, and her kind heart-of-pity was touched by his sorrow, although she knew nothing of his sad story. Remembering that she had the money in her pocket that her father had given to her that she might go to the circus, she suddenly resolved that she would give it to him, and stay home. “I should not enjoy anything, thinking of poor Frank, anyway,” she thought.
The man had apparently fallen asleep when Kate returned. Her feet made no sound on the turf as she stole back to the spot. His head was against the tree at whose foot he sat; his hat lay upon the ground. Kate dropped the bit of paper currency into it, and went noiselessly away.
Dear Kate Hallock never knew what she did that day. The fifty cents that she gave enabled the poor fellow to be in time to find his sister, who, alone in a land that was new and strange to her, had lost her brother. No wonder that he had made his escape from the hospital, and was trying to get back to the place where he had left her. He was just in time: for she was about to start with a band of strangers for the “Great West,” not knowing what else to do; and she had with her all the money that the brother possessed.