“What is it, pussy?” asked her father; “it looks so serious all at once.”
“I was thinking,” said the child, slowly; “I was wondering where the poor old man I saw up on the hill to-day would sleep to-night. Such a poor, poor man, so old and sick and ragged.”
“Bless the chick! What is she talking about now?”
“Some man she saw to-day when she was on the hill coasting with the others,” the mother said. “Some tramp, I suppose.”
“I have not heard of any in town,” said Dixon, with sudden thoughtfulness. “It isn’t the season for tramps. Oh!” he added, carelessly, as the child continued to look in his face, “some worthless old vagabond, I suppose, dearie. Don’t fret your little heart about him. He’ll find a warm nest in somebody’s hay-mow, no doubt.” But little Bab shook her head.
“I don’t think he was bad,” she said, softly, “only very sick and sorry. He asked me my name, and when I told him he laughed out so queer! And then I showed him our house, and told him maybe you’d give him some money, and then he laughed again, and then I—I got scared because the other girls had all run away, and I ran away, too.”
Her father had listened with strange intentness. His playfulness was extinguished, and his face looked all at once careworn and troubled.
“You’re a silly little lass,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “and you must not talk to strange men who ask questions. They might carry you off, you know.”
He held the child silently a little while longer, and then carried her back to her bed; after which he returned to his seat near the fire. His wife had already seated herself in her low chair, her face bent above the knitting in her hands. Outside the wind howled and roared, but in the room where these two sat all was, to the eye, calm, and sweet, and cosey. The fire glowed, and emitted cheerful little snaps and sparks, the clock ticked, and the knitting-needles clicked, and through the open door the child’s soft, regular breathing was distinctly audible. Suddenly the woman stirred and looked up, to find her husband’s eyes fixed upon her. Strangely enough they faltered, and turned away, but presently came back to hers again.