Here he told his story, which aroused the practical sympathy of the farmer, who hitched up a light wagon, collected such things, including a bag of feed for the horses, as the occasion seemed to demand, and in company with Dick started for the deserted homestead.
The farmer, after talking to Hiram Bond, decided to convey him to his house.
Wrapping him up in the blankets, he and Dick started him to the wagon and made him as comfortable as possible for the ride.
“I’ll bring the team on later,” said the boy.
Farmer Haywood nodded and then drove off, Dick returning to the work of gathering more apples.
By dark he had turned into the wagon thirty bushels by actual count.
“I can carry another ten bushels just as well as not,” he said to himself. “I will stay here all night and finish the job in the morning. I’ll be twenty-five dollars more to the good by hanging on. I guess I can stand a diet of apples and water for a few hours, at that rate. It won’t be the first time I’ve gone to sleep or to work half fed. If a fellow expects to get along in the world he’s got to take things as they come, and say nothing.”
Next morning about eleven o’clock Dick walked his team, with his load of some forty bushels of harvest apples, into Farmer Haywood’s yard.
“How is Mr. Bond?” was his first question of Mrs. Haywood, who greeted him at the door.
“Very poorly, indeed. We had to send for a doctor. I’m afraid he isn’t going to recover.”