After that, he was little surprised to find himself making the same remark concerning some of the smaller boys. He thought no more about that, for they were very apt to get into scrapes, but they did indeed have something on their minds, every inch as heavy, for them, as was the load he carried himself.
He had already learned over again one thing that he had known before. This was that all his hopes and plans must wait awhile. He would have to go along and let things turn up, one after another. Nobody can ever tell what is coming next or how their plans will unexpectedly run into those of other people.
Mrs. Nelson and Rodney, for instance, could hardly say that they had any plans, beyond hoping to sell one of their town lots for enough to pay the taxes and assessments on the rest; and having a door put in; and having a garden. She could not afford to keep Rodney any longer at school. He was old enough to earn something, and, besides, what if she should get sick or be out of work?
“I’ve got to do something,” he said, as he was carrying a chair upstairs. “Millie Kirby can set type. I wish I could. But she learned how in her father’s shop.”
She was a stirring kind of girl, anyhow, and he was a little afraid of her, but when he came downstairs again, she was in the back doorway, calling out:
“Rodney! Rodney!—You must come over to our house, right away! Billy’s down in our cellar and we can’t get him out. He’s drank up all the milk and he’s eaten all the vegetables. He tried to butt me and mother, too.”
“How did he get there!” exclaimed Rodney, setting out at once. “The old rascal!”
“The cellar was shut up, all night,” she said, “and the things were put into it to keep them safe, and when we went down, this morning, there was Billy, ready to fight us.”
“He’s the worst old goat!” said Rodney, “and he doesn’t belong to me, anyhow.”
He went in a hurry, however, and in a few minutes he began to understand the matter. The cellar stairs went down from a door opening into the hall.