Summer is coming. The buttercups are here. May-blossom is better. She sleeps well, coughs less, and her appetite is mending. Buoyed by deceitful hope, Miss Paulina takes heart, and the train for Boston, from whence,—crowned with the spoil of a half day's shopping,—she is, at this very moment, returning. The carryall fairly groans under its accumulated bundles; and the steel-clasped bag upon her arm is plethoric, to the last degree. Hours have passed since she parted from her darling. Hastily alighting, she hurries in. There is an under-quaver of anxiety in her voice as she calls, "May! May, May, dear!" Where can the child be, that she has not run to meet her! "May!" again, and louder—still no reply. Yet now a never-to-be-mistaken voice comes cooingly from the kitchen. "Who can the darling be fondling? (Harmy Patterson, though staunch and loving, is not one to unbend to endearments!) Her kitten, most likely."
She softly opens the kitchen door. Amazement stays her feet upon the threshold! Harmy, mute with horror, indicates with stretched forefinger her own clean patchwork-cushioned rocker, wherein, bolt upright, sits an unknown man,—and such a man! His coarse, dusty garments (evidently fashioned without the slightest reference to their present wearer) hang scarecrow-wise upon his graceless form. Under his slouched hat (which he democratically retains) he seems to skulk abjectly from the gazer's eye; as well he may, for, unshaven and unshorn, his wide mouth stained with tobacco, his hands and face begrimed with dust, he looks, every inch, the wretched outcast that he is! And (no wonder that old Harmy gapes distraught), seated lovingly upon this creature's knee, her dainty fingers clasping his dirty hand, her golden curls brushing his grimy neck, is May-blossom,—yes, May-blossom, her own sweet self, beaming, and fond, and absolutely unconscious of the incongruity of the situation. And this forlorn being, craving still of humanity but leave to carry on its shoulders the shamed head of a man, is a convict,—our old prison acquaintance, Peter Floome, May-blossom's sometime nurse, and always friend!
Lightly springing from her unseemly perch, the child hastens to greet Miss Paulina, and, hanging fondly upon her hand, cries eagerly, "Oh, auntie, darling, I'm so glad you've come! Here's Peter, dear old Peter! He's pardoned out, auntie, and, isn't it nice? He can come and see me every day now if he likes.
"Why, auntie! (somewhat crestfallen) aren't you glad? and won't you shake hands with him? Peter is nice, auntie, and he used to take such care of me when I was ever so little. You'll like Peter when he's washed up, and so will Harmy, though she does mind him just a little now, because she's not acquainted with him." (Harmy, sotto voce, and emphatically, "Lord sakes, no; an' don't never want to be!") Here, reminiscences of prison etiquette visiting Peter's dazed mind, he shuffles bashfully to his feet, and, pulling distractedly at his matted forelock, goes through a certain gymnic performance, supposed, by himself, to constitute a bow. The ice thus broken, Peter finds his tongue, and blurts out a "Good day, marm, hope I see yer well, marm."
Miss Paulina bows, a pause, ensues. Peter looks admiringly at May-blossom, and, thereby gaining inspiration, finds himself equal to a second attempt at conversation.
"She's growed, marm, like the mischief!" he asserts; "but I knowed her, I did, the minute I sot eyes on her out there in the mowin' lot! an' she knowed me, she did! Yes, yes, she knowed Peter; she knowed him. Poor old Peter! who don't hardly know himself nowerdays." Here Peter's voice gets husky, and, brushing away a dirty tear, with his greasy coat sleeve, he seems to await the issue. Peter Floome is downrightly the social antipodes of the lady of the homestead. Conventionally they do not stand side by side in the human group, but, like Swedenborg's unfraternal angels, "feet to feet." Yet in the artless harangue of this poor creature there is a touch of honest nature that at once makes them kin.
"And I, too, must know you, Peter," she says, cordially advancing and taking in her own clean palm his dirty hand.
Unable to express his appreciation of the honour thus conferred, Peter twirls his thumbs, ventures a side glance at Harmy, and, again utterly disparaged in his own eyes, looks uneasily at the floor.
Prompt to reconcile the cowed creature to himself, Miss Parker courteously says: "And now, Peter, you would, I think, like to go up to Reuben's bedroom and have a good wash. By and by Harmy shall give you tea, and then we must hear all about the pardon, and how you happened here, and what you mean to do with yourself, and what we can do for you. Come, Mabel, dear; Peter, you know, is your company. Show him up-stairs, my darling."