Transcriber’s Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

Harry Fenimore’s
Principles.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

“A SUMMER IN THE FOREST,” “FLOY LINDSLEY
AND HER FRIENDS,” ETC.

American Tract Society,

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.

COPYRIGHT, 1877,
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.

CONTENTS

Harry Fenimore’s
principles.

CHAPTER I.

Outside the city limits the country was glowing with garnet and gold, but within the boundary of walls and pavements, only here and there a solitary tree, or a vine trailing over a balcony, showed what October had been doing, and now the short autumn twilight was drawing its gray veil over even those. But nothing daunted, and as if determined to keep up for itself, the city began to sparkle here and there with an illumination of its own, and gas-lights began to gleam from one window after another, giving for the moment before the blinds were drawn, a free chance for a peep at the evening just beginning inside.

The light flashed from the windows of two houses at the same instant. One stood quite toward the outer limits of the city, and though its inmates and its furnishings were poor enough, it had a broad outlook over all the brilliant glory of the country round about, while a great old butternut-tree, knotted and gnarled by many a year, scattered its leaves in a golden shower over the roof and down the long yard leading to the road. The other fronted on one of the fashionable avenues of the city, where the square of grass before each door was only large enough for a single shrub, or a garden vase but inside, ivies twining fresh and green upon the walls, a conservatory window full of flowers, and the pleasant warmth of the crackling fire in the grate, seemed to balance the gayety of life outside, and make things very nearly equal again.

Whether the advantage was really on the side of the queer rambling old house under the butternut-tree, or belonged to himself, sitting in the ivied library of the brown stone front, Hal Fenimore was quite too busy to decide, as the servant reached his torch up to the chandelier, and with one burst after another the gas rushed to meet it, and the room flashed into a sudden burst of light.

“That’s good,” he exclaimed, as it flooded down upon the table where with elbows firmly planted, and his hands pushed through his hair, he had been impatiently waiting for his companion, Tom Haggarty, to make the next move in their game.

“I don’t know about it, though,” he added to himself, under his breath, as he discovered something to which he had been quite blind before, but which stood out so plainly now that he did not see how Tom could fail to see it for another moment. Everything had been going on swimmingly on his side, up to that moment; but there stood his queen in the very line of march of one of Tom’s bishops, and not a piece of any size to interfere! If Tom would only continue blind to his opportunity for one move more, till there should be time for a masterly retreat!

Poor little Tom! He did not look like an antagonist much to be dreaded, as he sat vis-a-vis to Hal, with not only an anxious, but a bewildered expression upon his face, first lifting a hand towards one of his pieces, and then withdrawing it, as if his uncertainty had only doubled by the movement. At last, in a sort of desperation, he made a plunge at his only remaining knight and moved it into a worse position than it occupied before. Then, still more hopelessly perplexed by Hal’s chuckle of triumph at the escape of his queen, and his taunting, “A’n’t you a bright fellow to play with!” he made two or three aimless moves, and Hal cried “Checkmate!” in a tone that completed his humiliation. It was very unpleasant somehow; he wondered if the player who did not checkmate always felt so. If he did, Tom certainly thought chess a very disagreeable game. So he slipped down from his chair and told Hal, who was still rejoicing in the conclusion of things, that he thought he must go.

“Don’t go,” said Hal, “let’s play another.”

“I guess I can’t; I guess I must go,” said Tom; and finding his hat, he got out of the front door, and heard it close behind him with a miserable feeling that seemed to run down to the very depths of his pockets, to the effect that Hal and himself had a clear understanding between them that he was a stupid little fellow, and that a good player was more than a match for him.

When Hal came back to the library, rubbing his hands with renewed triumph as he glanced at the chess-board, he also saw through the open door of the dining-room, that dinner had been brought in, and that his was the only vacant seat at the table.

So scrambling the pieces into their box, he made haste to take his place, apologizing for his tardiness by saying that he had been to the door with Tom.

“But, Hal,” said Mrs. Fenimore, as if a sudden thought struck her, “why don’t you sometimes invite one of the boys who know the game better? you seem always to have some little atom of a fellow who has not played three games in his life, and you have nothing to do but beat him.”

“That’s the very fun of it,” replied Hal; “I beat Tom all out just now, and sent him home feeling meaner than the fag end of nothing. That’s the way of course if you ever come across a fellow that isn’t smart enough to defend himself.”

“Why, Hal Fenimore! Do you say such a thing as that? You certainly never learned such principles at home, and I should be very sorry to think you had gathered them up since you came to be with your uncle and me.”

“I didn’t know it was principles,” said Hal, coming down a little from his high horse of complacency; “I never thought anything about it, in any way, only a fellow always likes to make another feel a little shabby if he can, because then he feels finer himself.”

“Why, Hal!” was all the lady could exclaim, as she turned to look closely in his face to see if he was really in earnest. “I wonder how you would have liked chess-playing if your uncle had taken that way to ‘feel fine’ as you call it, when he taught you? As far as I can recollect, he found his pleasure entirely in encouraging you, and helping you on over the rough places till you were able to stand by yourself.”

“Oh, that’s different,” said Hal. “Men don’t feel like boys. I suppose when I am a man, I shall teach my small nephews and nieces, and never see a mistake they make.”

“I don’t know about that,” said his uncle; “you’ll be pretty likely to find yourself a grown-up Hal Fenimore when that day comes, and your friends Tom Haggartys still, and nothing more or less. I give you fair warning. A good deal depends upon how you strike out with your pawns, in real life as well as in chess, my boy.”

“But men try to get ahead of each other, and they fight battles and get victories,” persisted Hal.

“I beg your pardon,” said his uncle, “high-minded men don’t like to fight battles with adversaries much weaker than themselves; and as for ‘getting ahead,’ that is a very different thing from standing still and crowing over some poor little companion that you have managed to push down.”

“Well,” said Hal, who found the discussion did not seem to turn very decidedly in his favor, “I only know how boys do; but one thing they have to look sharp for is having their lessons, and I must get to mine in a great hurry now, if you will excuse me.”

The library fire crackled and glowed in the grate until it almost seemed a pleasant thing that the evenings were getting frosty, and Hal soon forgot all questions of mutual rights, in the more pressing one of division of fractions, which took such complete possession of him that he started as if out of a dream, at the sound of his aunt’s voice saying, “I declare, Hal, I think I’ll invite Tom Haggarty here, and give him lessons every evening for a week. He’s a bright little fellow, and would be a match for you, if he didn’t beat you, in a very short time.”

Poor little Tom! If he could only have heard her say it, what a comfort it would have been! The miserable feeling that had come over him as he said Good-night to Hal, had stuck fast ever since, till he had fairly gone to bed to get rid of it, and was lying at that moment, with his little cold nose tucked away under the blankets, trying to smother the conviction that he was the stupidest and most insignificant fellow in the world, and that Hal would be sure to remind him of it at school the next day.

“Now, Aunt Melanie!” exclaimed Hal, “I can’t understand how you make so much of that game of chess. Tom will find a boy smaller than himself stumbling at his lesson to-morrow, and he’ll crow over him, as uncle calls it, and then that little one will find another pushed out at a game of ball and have his crow, and so they will all take their turns and come out even.”

“Take their turns at what?” said his uncle, looking up from his newspaper. “At putting on all manner of airs with themselves, when they have really done something contemptible, and then at being made to feel contemptible when perhaps they have done the best they could. It hurts either way, my boy, and it isn’t starting with your pieces in good range, let me tell you once more.”

“Well,” said Hal, growing a little uncomfortable again, “I wish I could get these figures into range, at all events. I believe there’s no battleground where things go quite so hard as they do on a fellow’s slate;” and plunging in again amid rules and examples, he thought little more of poor Tom or his woes, until he went to join him in the land of dreams.

CHAPTER II.

The golden shower that the old butternut sent down upon the queer roof outside the city, was the nearest approach to the real thing the house ever saw, for though it had had its day with very grand people, they had all died or moved away long ago, and left it to grow shabby and old-fashioned as it might, until at last the city had bought it for a very small sum, and established within its walls the few old people and strays that the authorities were bound to support. So now it was nothing more nor less than the city almshouse, and the strip of land running back from it to the road behind, was called the poor-farm, though it seemed rather as an odd sort of compliment to the paupers, (boarders they preferred to be called,) than as a statement of fact, for there was only room to raise such vegetables as were needed for daily use in the summer, and the potatoes and great yellow pumpkins that were stored away for winter-days.

But old Ben, who had the care of the garden, such as it was, was proud enough of his charge, and would have ruffled up in a moment at any one who dared to call it small.

Ben had seen better days himself, as well as the old house, and had kept many a rich man’s grounds and conservatories in hand; but after all, was not a garden a garden wherever it was, and had not the good Lord called himself a husbandman, and said that he walked in the garden of his spices?

So when Ben found himself sick and unable to stir from his little room, just as all the winter things were ready to be brought in, it fretted and troubled him terribly for a few days, but at last he grew quiet. They might wait, he said; he was waiting himself till the Husbandman should see fit to bring him in. He did not have to wait long; and when the matron saw that he was really gone, she seemed to hear the words he had repeated so many times ringing in her ears.

“Waiting! Dear, dear, and what else are we all doing? What are any of us doing here but to wait?” she had said to old Sue on the morning when they saw that harvest-time had come for Ben at last.

Sue had nodded assent, and a queer little bit of humanity, half standing, half sitting, quite unnoticed, in one of the queer old windows, had nodded too, but not for himself. He could not suppose she meant to include him.

“All but me!” he added to himself; that was what he always said, and somehow it never did seem as if anything was intended for him. The women had not noticed him, partly because he was so small, his great, dreamy eyes looking over at them from a point hardly higher than the window-sill, and partly because no one ever noticed Creepy further than to speak a kind word, or to manage some little thing that he thought might go towards his comfort. He came and went as he liked, but so noiselessly that the gaze of his great eyes, devouring everything from one corner to another, made the new-comers start, until they were used to it, and found out at last that it was only “the poor crooked thing,” as Mrs. Ganderby the matron called him—the stray child with the crooked back, whom no one had ever claimed or ever would.

No one ever asked any work of Creepy, and indeed it seemed doubtful whether anything would ever be found for those white hands, so like a baby’s in their powerless touch; and it was not always certain, after all, that one would meet him here or there about the house. There were days and weeks together when he was only able to sit where some one placed his chair; in summer oftenest under the shade of the old butternut, and in winter by some one of the queer little windows where the sun could lie the longest. Old Enoch had made the chair for him, and a most remarkable specimen of handicraft it was.

“Does credit to your head and heart, Enoch,” said the doctor when he saw it.

Enoch took off his hat and made the best bow his rheumatism would allow; but pleasant as it was to receive a compliment from the doctor, even that could not add to his pride in his work.

“Thanks,” he said. “In course I ought to know my business, for ’twas the best master-workman in the country round I was ’prenticed to, and ’twas more than forty year my work was called a match to his, far and near, and would have been yet to this day, if a fall from the big steeple hadn’t brought me down to stiff joints for the rest of my old age. Ben had a great deal to say about gardening, to be sure, but what good would people get out of potatoes to put in their mouths if they had not a shelter over their heads? I should like to ask. And Ben was always making it such a thing to remember that the blessed Lord called himself a husbandman when He was here; but was He not a carpenter first and foremost, and before he even talked a word about sowing seed?”

Ah! “blessed Lord” indeed! Who else could have made poverty and work seem sweet?

So there sat Creepy, always looking and listening, never saying anything about the pain in his crooked little back, even when it was at the worst; never saying much about anything, in fact, only nodding and smiling quietly while he listened to the rest. Except, to be sure, the one little thing that he was always saying, the same that he had said in Ben’s room; but even that was almost always whispered to himself.

“All but me!”

And indeed it did not seem that many things were intended to include Creepy. The other paupers had their times of getting new clothing allowed, but it was never considered necessary for Creepy; the matron always found some portion of some cast-off garment that had resisted wear and tear sufficiently to be brought round again, by her devices, into the right size and shape for “the poor crooked thing,” as she always called him; “it took such a scrap,” she used to say, “though dear knows it had been a precious job to worry out a pattern for such a back and shoulders. She didn’t know whose wit and patience would ever have done it but her own.”

And when the census-taker came, Creepy sat in his hollow chair, and fixed his great dark eyes upon them both, while she gave the names of Enoch and Sue, and the twenty or more, older or younger, who made up the list of their companions.

“And so that’s all, is it?” said the census-taker.

“That’s all,” replied the matron.

“That’s all,” repeated Creepy, nodding, “all but me.”

“Now may Heaven forgive me,” exclaimed the matron, as passing through the old porch she caught sight of Creepy, “if I did not speak the truth; but who would ever have thought of the poor crooked thing, and more than all, of giving such a name as that to go and be printed before all the world, which no one knows who gave it to him, more than where he came from himself, may the good Lord have pity upon him.”

She bustled on in too much haste to let her conscience smite her very deeply, for there was a stir in the almshouse that morning. It was one of the glorious golden days in October, and from time immemorial it had been the custom of the house, once in the year, for every one, old and young, to get work out of the way, don their best clothes, and set off in a triumphant march still farther out beyond the city, out to the great belt of yellow woods that lay just on the border of the bay. And there they would rustle about in the fallen leaves like children, and fill up the emptied lunch-baskets with nuts for the winter evenings, and never come back till the golden light of afternoon began to falter, and it was time to get home before twilight damp should fall on rheumatic bones. And this was the morning for them, this time. But they never had been so late getting off. The census-taker had hindered the matron until she declared at last when he was really gone she was in such a toss she hardly knew which way to turn first; and then they missed Ben who had always been such a dependence and it seemed as if something was all wrong, going without him for the first time.

But they were off at last, and Creepy watched them until the last figure disappeared under some yellow trees that stood at the corner of the road. It was Sue, and she was just taking Enoch’s lunch-basket out of his hand.

“Give it to me, man,” she said, “are you forgetting all about that lame shoulder? ’Twill be stiffer than a rusty hinge to-morrow.”

“It’s you who are forgetting,” said Enoch. “You might remember that you are five years older than any one of us, and that your feet will be failing you before we reach the next turn.”

“And isn’t this the very day of the year for forgetting?” answered Sue. “We always forget on this day even that we are paupers, for are not the soft breeze and the blue hills and the crystal air around us the good Lord’s, and has he not given all his creatures a share in them alike?”

“What a thing it must be,” Creepy sat thinking to himself, “to move so light and free as they do, and to go so far. It seems as though they were all melted into gold, passing under those trees, and that’s the last I see of them.”

The last he saw of Sue and the rest, but what came pushing out from under the gold, and nearing the almshouse so fast that Creepy saw it plainer and plainer every moment? A jet-black horse and a light chaise—Creepy knew them in an instant. It was the city physician’s chaise, Dr. Thorndyke’s, and had stood at the almshouse door a few moments every day while Ben was sick.

The matron saw him too.

“Now whom can he have been visiting on that road?” she said to herself. “Dear knows, there’s no house beyond us within the city limits but the Jellerbys’ and the Diffendorffers’. And now he’s hurrying back for dear life to folks of more importance.”

Very much mistaken was Mrs. Ganderby for once. So far from hurrying back “for dear life,” the horse’s pace was slackened as it drew near the almshouse, and just as it reached the gate, was drawn up with a short rein.

“Now may all that’s good deliver us!” exclaimed the matron, pulling her apron-strings into a hopeless knot, in her hurry to get it off. “Who does he think is dying or ready to die in the house to-day, that he must needs come unawares upon respectable housekeepers on the one morning in the year when there’s excuse if everything is not in its place as early as others. It’s none but a young doctor, surely, who has time to call when he is not sent for.”

It was of no use; the knot would not be untied, and the doctor could not be kept waiting, so Mrs. Ganderby proceeded to open the door, smoothing her apron and her temper as she went, until the doctor suspected nothing out of the way with either. And, indeed, it would have been hard to keep any vexation in one’s soul, when fairly face to face with Dr. Thorndyke, his own was so full of friendly greeting and good cheer; and, moreover, there was something in the hearty, vigorous way he was setting out in his own life that was positively refreshing, and made one feel he must certainly be the man to attack any of the numerous ills that might beset their own.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Ganderby,” said the doctor, “you wont take it amiss that I have come this time without being sent for, I hope.”

“O dear, no, sir; I’m sure it’s only too great a compliment that you should take a moment from all you have to think of. I’m only sorry our people have all gone off to-day for a tramp to the woods, that I dare say seems foolish enough to any one who has more range of pleasures; but however that may be, they’re all gone, and there’s no one at home but myself, nor no one could be more pleased to see you, sir; walk in, I beg.”

“All gone,” repeated the doctor, a shade coming on his face. “Thank you; but did you say they were all gone?”

“All but me,” nodded Creepy, from where he sat under the big tree, sharing with wondering eyes and ears in the excitement of the doctor’s visit; but no one noticed him.

“Gone for a day in the woods, sir,” said Mrs. Ganderby apologetically; “it seems childish for people of the age and infirmities of most of them; but it’s a rare day, sir, which it’s also a way of the house to get away once or twice in the year.”

“You don’t mean to say that the lame child, the little cripple I have seen here, has gone for a walk like that?”

“What, Creepy! Dear heart, the poor crooked thing couldn’t make his feet serve him out of sight down the road, which it’s a strange thing I never can seem to recollect mentioning him with the rest, although it certainly isn’t from any want of pity for the child that Heaven hasn’t seen fit to give a body like other people.”

“Then he is at home,” said the doctor, quite himself again; “and where shall I find him, Mrs. Ganderby? It is rather early in the day to detain a housekeeper, and I presume he may be quite at leisure.”

“Why certainly, sir; it’s little else than leisure the poor thing has, sitting from morning till night in his chair, which, if you have leisure enough to spare him a few moments, it may be a great blessing to him, I am sure. He’s just there, sir, under the big butternut, and if you’ll have the goodness to come in, I’ll bring him in a moment.”

“No, no,” said the doctor, discovering Creepy for the first time; “I’ll go to him,” and with a few rapid steps down the gravel walk, he was at Creepy’s side, leaving Mrs. Ganderby to declare at her leisure that “wonders never would cease, though if the doctor had the goodness in his heart, and the time on his hands to look after the poor crooked thing, there was no one who needed it more; which it was not at all probable that any one could do anything for the like of him, however.”

CHAPTER III.

Not so wonderful perhaps, after all. If there was a doctor in the world, besides the soulless visitor of the year before, stupid enough to praise the workmanship of a cripple’s chair, and never feel himself roused at the demand made upon his own skill by the cripple, it was not Dr. Thorndyke. He had not passed half way from the door of Ben’s room to the bedside before his eye caught the strange, dwarfed, little figure stationed motionless in the window, but following every movement in the room with its great, dreamy eyes.

The matron admired and wondered at the careful but swift conclusion of his study of Ben’s case; and when he had—she did not know how—made her feel sure he understood it, and had shown so kind an interest in the old man, and had gone again, it was scarcely five minutes by the great clock in the hall since he came in. But she did not once imagine that in the same time he had come closer to Creepy, and seen more clearly what the poor, twisted little frame and the shrinking heart were needing, than she had in the whole three years she had taken the responsibilities of the almshouse upon herself.

“But not now,” he said to himself as he passed the window with so quick a glance that Creepy had no idea he even saw him; “we want more time, that child and I. I think there’s a chance there for a doctor to amount to something, for once in a way.”

So here he was, for Dr. Thorndyke never lost much time when once he had determined upon a thing; and he was fairly seated beside his new patient before Creepy had recovered from the amazement of hearing himself inquired for sufficiently to draw a breath.

“So, so, young man,” said the doctor, stooping for a quick look into Creepy’s face, “enjoying the free air and the sunshine with the rest of the world, eh? Well,” and he lifted his hat to catch the breeze, “it’s a day to make the most of, and I haven’t seen a more tempting place to pass an hour anywhere. How the light showers down through these yellow leaves! Is there enough for you and me both for a little while, do you think?”

Creepy could not have spoken to save his life, but the answer shone out of his eyes, and the doctor was satisfied with that.

“It’s a day to make one feel like a boy again,” he said, pulling up a handful of grass and showering the seeds through the sunlight. “And so they’ve all imagined they were children and gone off to the woods, I hear?”

“All but me,” said Creepy, nodding at the doctor, with eyes still fixed upon his face.

“All but you; you thought this was your place, and kept it, eh? Well, it’s not every one who has wisdom for that, though we all have our places in the world, if we could but find them.”

“All but me,” said Creepy, nodding again.

The doctor shot another glance into his face. “You’re very much mistaken,” he said; and then turning to pull more grasses, added suddenly, “Why didn’t you go with them?”

“I never go anywhere.”

“And why not?” asked the doctor, tossing the seeds out into the air again. “What would happen if you were to go? A pain here and there? A pain in that back, for instance?”

The eyes answered again.

“And not a new pain? A pain that comes quite often, and stays as long as it likes—is there at this very moment, perhaps?”

Creepy nodded, but he could not have spoken for his life. It seemed to him he was talking face to face with a magician. How should he know, when the people in the house were never told, could only guess, and he had seen none of them this morning.

“And don’t you know that’s all wrong?” went on the doctor. “Other boys of your age play in the sunshine every hour they can get out from the schoolmaster’s clutches.”

The never-failing answer came to Creepy’s lips, but he did not speak.

“Do you know what runs across the road, just beyond the turn under those yellow trees? There is a brook down there, and not far below it passes through a shady spot, and gets very deep and almost as cold as ice. That’s the very place for trout! Suppose you and I go down when the season comes round again, say next spring, for instance. There are some great rocks there under the trees, and we could take it as lazily as we liked.”

Now the doctor knew very well that if he had proposed that Creepy should take him on his shoulders and prance away moonward, he could not have amazed and bewildered him more; and it showed plainly enough in Creepy’s face, but the doctor would not understand.

“You think it strange I could find the time, don’t you? That is true enough; it could not come very often—once in a season, perhaps, as a great treat. But for to-day it is pleasure enough to sit here in the sunshine. I wonder who made this bench? The same hand that fitted your chair, perhaps?”

“No,” said Creepy; “it was Ben. He used to make them while he was a gardener. He got roots and crooked branches in the woods and twisted them together. That was while he was waiting.”

“Waiting?” asked the doctor. “What was he waiting for?”

“Waiting to be gathered in. The matron says we’re all waiting. All but me.”

“And why not you? Are you in such haste that you cannot wait? You must wait for spring, before we go fishing, at least. Then you shall help me gather branches for just such a seat. I must have one on my piazza. That is to say, if you can get away from school then, eh?” and the doctor tossed out more seeds, and they floated away and showered down over the walk, to start up and make Enoch a deal of hoeing in the spring.

But nothing to compare with the thoughts he had tossed, and with seemingly a more careless hand, into Creepy’s heart in the five minutes he had been sitting on the rustic seat that had been such a pride to Ben. And there was no waiting with them. Every one had struck root already, and sprung up into some sudden, bewildering feeling, until there was a terrible confusion in the little hot-bed. Why had the doctor come to see him? No one ever came; no one ever sat down to talk with him. Every one was kind, always kind; but every one went on his own way. Go fishing! He go fishing? Had he not just told him he never went anywhere? Could not he see for himself, for did not a doctor know everything? And how should he help him cut down trees, or how should he go to school? Schools were made for every one else, that is true; but no one, except Ben, had ever helped him even so far as to read. Was the doctor mocking him? Did he not see that he was only made to sit in his shapeless chair, and feel the pain going up and down the crooked back like a devouring thing? Why did he talk to him as he would talk to any one else?

“Shall we call it an engagement?” said the doctor, looking quickly in Creepy’s face again.

“What did you come here for?” cried Creepy, suddenly, with eyes and voice. “Why do you ask me such things? You never saw me before!”

The doctor rose up and stood before his chair, stretching himself to his full height.

“Yes I have seen you before, and you have seen me. You have seen how strong I am, how light and quick my step is, how full of life all my veins are, and how that makes it a pleasant thing for me to live. And I have seen how weak and tired you are, and how your life is only to sit here and bear pain, as no child ought to do. And that is why I came, to see what can be done about it all! Don’t you know that sick people get well, and weak people strong, and crooked limbs are made straight, sometimes?”

The burning eyes were dropped now, and Creepy only smiled and shook his head.

“Don’t you know that, my little man?”

“All but me.”

The doctor stooped and lifting the lame child gently from his chair, gathered him up in his arms and held him, looking down into his face.

“Do you know you are mistaken? I do not think we can make things altogether straight with you, that is true; but I think we can send that pain where it will never find its way back again, and put strength into those limbs, so that you shall go and come with the rest, and find out what it really is to live and move in God’s world; that is what I want to see about. I do not feel any doubt we shall succeed. Shall we try?”

The doctor could not see under the great drooping eyelids and the quivering lashes, but Creepy scarcely seemed to breathe. Not with the thought of what the doctor had said, for his words only seemed a sound passing out into the sunshine; their meaning did not touch him as even a possibility. But he was speaking, was here, was holding him tenderly in his arms—that by itself was bewildering enough—he could only hold his breath and lie still.

“So you don’t say no? You are not afraid to try?”

Creepy shook his head.

“Shall we begin to-morrow?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said the doctor, with a quick but gentle pressure of the strong arms, and then they placed Creepy carefully in the queer chair; the doctor looked closely into his face once, and said Good-by. In another moment he had passed over the walk where the scattered seeds were to make so much trouble, sprung into the chaise, and given the rein to the black horse, and the sound of its hoofs was ringing back from halfway down to the turn in the road under the yellow trees.

Great was the excitement in the almshouse when the matron, after bottling up the news of the doctor’s visit all day long, poured it out on the returning party in the evening.

“He had been there for nothing in the world but to see the poor crooked thing, though with manners enough to make a show of asking for the rest, and had sat talking under the butternut-tree for a full half hour, five times as long as he had ever stayed by Ben when he was dying; which she couldn’t get the child to repeat the half he had said; but the most she could make out was, he was coming every day, or for aught she knew three times a day, to try some plan of his own to straighten the poor thing out: which she was sure it was more like the Lord regarding the sparrows sold for a farthing than any other happening she had ever seen, if he had sent a young man of the sense and skill of that one, all unrequested, to lay himself out to mend a little life like that. And no one could be more rejoiced than she if he could do it, nor more ready to give praise for a miracle of her own times, though at the same time she knew it was only a young doctor who could afford to go about picking up cases that never sent for him, and that nobody could say were responsible to him in one way or another, if he did not choose to see it.”

The basket of nuts for the winter evenings, which had made such work with the arms of one after another of the party before they got it home, was forgotten where it stood, while they listened with open mouths and ears to the matron’s speech, and when Enoch in his haste to go and see if Creepy looked just the same after what had happened, struck it with his foot and sent the contents rolling half across the room, no one said a word, or stirred from his place to gather them up.

“Dear, dear!” said Sue, “but the Lord remembers all in their turn, if they do but wait his time! And it’s come sooner to him than to some, but there never was patienter waiting, nor would have been for a hundred times as long, if it had been His will!”

“Well, there’ll be waiting enough yet, to see what comes of it all,” said the matron. “Sometimes doctors cure and sometimes they kill, and sometimes they do nothing at all, which it remains to be seen whether it will be one or the other with the poor crooked thing.”

“Dear, dear,” said the old woman who had taken the most care of Ben, “what are we all doing here but to wait?” and then finding there was really nothing more to be heard, she and Sue bustled off to see about supper, and then to carry their tired bones to rest, and to dream over all the events of the wonderful day.

CHAPTER IV.

Such a battery of eyes as was on the watch for the doctor’s visit the next morning! Not one of the paupers could be persuaded to any work that would take his individual pair out of range of the street; each one had an excellent reason for choosing a station where he could shoot a glance out of the window, or down the yard, and no very long interval was allowed between the shots either. Mrs. Ganderby herself found it highly important to keep in the front part of the house and just make sure that Enoch was going on well with a bit of repair he had set himself about on the doorstep. Creepy sat under the butternut-tree, and the yellow leaves had fluttered down till they lay in a golden circle around his queer little chair; the doorstep was mended, Mrs. Ganderby could not find another spot out of order within reach of the front windows; one after another the old clock in the hall had ticked away the hours of the glistening October morning, and still no black horse came dashing up before the door. “If I hadn’t seen the doctor with my own eyes yesterday,” said Mrs. Ganderby, “I should say it was all a light-headed notion of the poor crooked thing that he was here at all, which he certainly was here, however; but what he had to say about coming again is another question that will take care of itself before the day is gone.”

Greater and greater grew the wonder and suspense. Was the doctor coming at all, and what was he going to do if he came? That was so far beyond what they knew, that they set themselves to imagining, until if they had seen him alight, one hand holding a terrible knife, with which to remove the lame child’s poor twisted spine, and the other a big anvil on which to hammer it straight again, they would not have been very much more astonished. Could they believe their eyes and ears, when at last, as the sun was getting round by the west, the ring of the horse’s hoofs was heard, and almost before he was fairly reined up, the doctor sprung out empty-handed, and was on the doorstep chatting with Mrs. Ganderby as gayly as if nothing of any solemnity had ever happened in the world, or was expected to happen while it should stand?

Sue crept round to the shadow of the jut where the old clock stood, just to get an idea of what he was saying. Praising the matron’s bed of nasturtiums which she had saved from the frost, and asking her what receipt she used for pickling them! Dear, dear, but this was a strange world! What had doctors to do with pickles? and how were they to notice the taste of one thing from another, coming in to dinner as they did with pockets full of poisons, and the cries of the sick and dying in their ears? But hark! They had stopped talking about the nasturtiums.

“By the way, Mrs. Ganderby,” said the doctor, “that little fellow that I was talking with yesterday, the lame child; it seems to me something might be done for him, and I propose that we should try. It’s rather dull music for a boy of his age; ten or twelve is he, Mrs. Ganderby?”

“Indeed, sir, the land knows as well as any of us do, how old the poor crooked thing may be; you can judge better perhaps yourself, sir. But whether it’s more or less, it seems a cruel thing and unnatural like, to see him sit in that chair and let all the summer-days go by, and know no more of what living is than some poor squirrel shut up in its cage.”

“Precisely what I was going to say, Mrs. Ganderby, and though of course it would be folly to talk of bringing everything right, in a case like that, still I am sure we can do a great deal. I say ‘we,’ because I shall have to depend a great deal on your kindness in making things go as I wish.”

“Well certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Ganderby, stroking her apron and her gratified pride at the same time; “if there should be anything in my power, which I should have been the last one, however, to suppose a poor drought-stricken little life like that could be brought to look up much in this world.”

“I want him to have some pleasures,” said the doctor; “something for those eyes to look at besides what they have dreamed over for a year. Books, for instance. Perhaps there is not a great variety in the house?”

“Well, sir, as to that, you would hardly expect the number to be great; but such as they are, I don’t at this moment remember just what the poor crooked thing’s book learning may be, though I mind that I sometimes used to see Ben and himself over a page together when Ben was here. I should say he knew his letters at least.”

The doctor snapped one of Enoch’s doorstep splinters in two, and sent it flying halfway up the horsechestnut-tree that stood a few paces off the grand walk, and in another moment Sue had to dart from her retreat in her corner, for Mrs. Ganderby was coming in, and the doctor was already making a pathway through the yellow circle around Creepy’s chair.

And in another half-hour he was gone, and what wonderful thing had been done, so far as Creepy was concerned, no one could see; but for the rest of the house, half the people in it had been set to work. Mrs. Ganderby was bustling about, declaring she only hoped she might have strength given her to carry on her mind all the ifs and ands, and things to be done and undone, the doctor had laid out for her to think of; and something had been slipped into Enoch’s hand, and thence into his pocket, nobody knew what; but he had come in with great airs of importance, and was telling every one how he was to go to the wheelwright’s and get a pair of wheels to be fitted to Creepy’s chair, and how he was to wheel him down the road every sunny day, and let him see what lay beyond the turn, under the trees, or anywhere else he might take a fancy to go. And Sue, who had once taught a district school in the village where she was born, for a whole summer term, was engaged to spend half an hour every afternoon, in leading Creepy out among the mysteries of an arithmetic, slate, and pencil, that were to be sent to him the next day.

It was well for Creepy that he did not hear all this for an hour or more after the doctor went away, for he had excitement enough in his own part of the visit, and yet they had seemed to be having the quietest talk in the world, for the most part.

“So they got a big basket of nuts yesterday, did they?” the doctor asked carelessly as he sat down. “Well, that is good sport, but nothing to compare with trouting. Now, when you and I go trouting, some day—well, you’ll see how it all is. The nuts don’t try to get away from you and the trout do—that is one difference; but the fact is, it’s such very great sport, there’s no use in trying to describe it, though there have been books written about trouting. Did you ever see one?”

“No,” said Creepy with great wondering eyes.

“Very likely, but you’ll come across them some day. In the meantime I suppose you read what you like best, or do you take up whatever comes in your way?”

“Nothing does come in my way,” said Creepy, “since Ben died. He only had two books, but they gave them away to somebody, afterwards, and that’s all there were in the house.”

“That was the whole library?” asked the doctor, with a smile Creepy did not exactly understand.

“Yes, that was all, and there were pieces gone off from both of them, but there was enough left for Ben to teach me.”

“So Ben taught you, did he?” said the doctor, having learned exactly what he wished. “Ben was a rare fellow, to make schoolmaster and gardener at once. Did he ever teach you, I wonder, how much flint there is in a stalk of grass like this?” And he pulled one up, and began to make mischief with the seeds again.

“Queer, isn’t it?” he went on, as Creepy only said “No,” with a still more wondering look. “And there is still more in a stalk of wheat; that is what makes it strong and straight, partly, and ought to make you strong and straight too, when you eat it. By the way,” turning his eyes suddenly upon the queer little jacket Mrs. Ganderby’s “wits and patience” had “worried out,” “would you mind taking that jacket off one moment, and letting me just pass my fingers up and down your back?”

Creepy’s hands trembled a little, but he got it off. He never liked to have anything touch his back, it always hurt him so.

“There,” said the doctor; “now tell me, please, do you feel any pain when I put my finger here?”

It was the gentlest and tenderest of touches, but it was hard for the lame child to bear. He hesitated, but the doctor waited for an answer.

“Yes,” he said.

“Ah! and now here, please. Do you feel this same pain now?” as he removed the touch to another point.

“Yes.”

“And here too?” moving it again.

“Yes.”

“Just as I thought. Now that’s all wrong. We must put a stop to that somehow or other. I wonder if I can’t get this jacket on again without as much trouble as it would give you?” and the doctor took up the shapeless little thing as gently as Ben ever handled the choicest hot-house plant. Creepy never could tell how it went on, only the wish ran through his mind that the doctor would always do it for him. It was so easy, and not a bit of the pain he always felt so long after he put it on himself.

“Don’t you think that is a pretty horse of mine?” began the doctor, sitting down again on Ben’s seat. “We must have a ride after him together some day. Not just now, perhaps—it is going to be cold very soon-but when the warm spring days come again, then we’ll try it. And you’ll be having a good pull at your school-books in the meantime, I suppose. Boys of your age are all busy with their arithmetics and ugly things of that kind, eh?”

Creepy shook his head.

“All but me.”

“And why not you? Don’t you know every one has to serve his time with these things, to get ready for other work by-and-by?”

“All but—”

“Tut!” said the doctor, getting up quickly and sending his last bunch of grass stalks fluttering out on the wind. “Who taught you to say that? Whoever it was made a great mistake, or wanted to cheat you out of your rights, I don’t know which. The world was made for you, just as much as for any one else, and you are to have your share, and find your place in it with the rest. Will you remember that, my little man?” and he stopped for a look in Creepy’s face.

He could not see that Creepy’s heart was throbbing his breath away with all the watching and the wonder, and the thanks that had gathered up there since morning, and with hearing such words spoken, although they didn’t seem any more real than yesterday.

But he saw how it was swelling up the veins in his forehead, and drooping the eyelids over the great eyes, and he did not wait for an answer, but walked away and paced back and forth over the yellow carpet. Then he sat down on the rustic seat again, and chatted as he had the day before, of what lay out in the world, and along the trout-stream; then he said Good-by, had his talk with Mrs. Ganderby, found Enoch and Sue, and settled matters with them, and was off. And no one suspected that he had been up and at work all the night before, and had not been able to catch a moment from the duties of the day, until just then, and that he still saw work ahead to stretch well on into the night, before there was a chance of rest.

Hal Fenimore and Tom Haggarty had but just commenced their evening with library fires crackling and companions gay enough to atone for all the ups and downs of the day’s school, when Creepy slipped off to his little bed, thankful to lie down and see if his heart would not stop that beating that was tiring him so, and if the pain in his back would let him lie still enough to straighten out all the thoughts that were making such confusion in his brain.

What had the doctor said? There was a place in the world and a share in it for him, as well as the rest? But the place must be just here, under the old butternut; it couldn’t be anywhere else. And he was to grow stronger, and the pain to grow less, every month until spring, and then begin to go to school like other boys. What a strange sound that had! It was pleasant to have the doctor say so; it seemed like a dream; but one had always to wake up from dreams, and find things were not so. “All boys go to school.” All but—ah, the doctor did not like to have him say that. At all events, he was to have a book and study; and he was to see with his own eyes what lay beyond the turn in the road. Enoch was to see to his going, and Sue and Mrs. Ganderby were to do other things, and the doctor was coming again. All these people thinking of him! It was of no use trying to understand it; if he could only go to sleep! And yet he feared the dream would be gone when he waked in the morning; he should find not a word of all to be true.

He shut his eyes just for a moment as he thought, but when he opened them again the sun was shining through the patched curtain at the window, and the night was gone. Had the dream taken flight with it? There was but one way to find out, so he dressed himself with trembling fingers and crept noiselessly out towards his crooked chair. Enoch was there before him. Tools lying all around on the yellow leaves, and the old carpenter so busy with his work that he did not hear Creepy’s footsteps rustling over them too. The sun had not been fairly above the horizon before Enoch was off in search of those wheels, belaboring himself at every step of the way for a stupid blockhead that could make a chair for a cripple, and never have the idea of putting on a running-gear come into his head, though he had it before his eyes every day that the one it was made for never went outside the fence from one year’s end to another! But where would the money have come from if he had thought of it ever so long ago? Money makes most wheels turn in this world, and it’s not strange if a five-dollar bill put into your hand should bring some of them round to a lame child’s corner once in a way, as well as elsewhere. A likely young man, that doctor, and wise enough to know where to choose the right workman to do his job; that was more than could always be said of them, much as they might know about people that were laid on their beds and good for nothing!

CHAPTER V.

The black horse had begun his work in some of the up-town streets before Enoch had finished his, and was hurrying past a handsome brick building just as a crowd of boys were entering it.

“There’s about the place, now,” said Doctor Thorndyke, “where I’d like to see my little patient with the crooked back, after I once get him on his feet again. He’d hold his own with the best of them in his books, if he couldn’t in a foot-race, I’ll warrant, if he only had the chance; and there’s nothing that would shake him up, and put a stop to that miserable ‘all but me’ notion of his, like taking his place among his mates, as he would in a school like that. The only thing is to get him there. It takes a good deal of a back to sit at one of those desks;” upon which the doctor fell into such a fit of musing that he drove three doors beyond the house he was aiming at before he bethought himself what he was about.

Meanwhile the schoolhouse, at which he had looked with such covetous eyes for Creepy, seemed half alive with hustling, bustling boys; the five-minute bell had already rung, and all were making the best of their way to their places, some flying up to the second floor, two stairs at a time, some passing in more quietly at other doors, while here and there a lingering step ventured on a few seconds’ delay to steal a last glance at a lesson that would have no further chance after exercises were once commenced. Only one figure stood still at the foot of the stairs: poor little Tom Haggarty, who had slept off his humiliation about the chess to some extent, but felt it rushing on again with most disagreeable force at sight of Hal, and was terribly anxious to keep at a safe distance from him for the present.

“If I can just keep out of his track till recess,” thought Tom, “he’ll get warmed up with something else, and wont be apt to think of it. I don’t want him to be telling all the boys he can wind me round his finger in a game like that. ’Twasn’t hardly fair, either, for I hadn’t tried but two or three times, and he’s had lots of lessons, and there’s no end of pieces and moves to carry in a fellow’s head.”

But Hal was one of the lingerers, and it seemed as if he never would move on. All the other boys on his floor had passed in, and were taking their seats, while with half an eye on the clock, Hal still stood outside the partly open door mulling over his arithmetic lesson, that he knew would be the first to come upon the floor. Tick, tick, went the clock, and pit-a-pat went Tom’s heart. Could he dare another second? If that door should be shut before he reached the top of the stairs, there was a tardy mark for him, and he was making a tremendous effort about marks this term. Would Hal never move? Perhaps he could creep up softly without his noticing. He put his foot on the first stair, then on the second, keeping his eye on Hal, when suddenly he was no longer there. He had glided in and the door was shut! In a second Tom was at the top and with his hand on the door-knob. The monitor, who had not really removed his own from it to turn the key, allowed it to open. Tom who felt small enough at that moment to have gone through the keyhole, was admitted, and stealing a glance at Hal, already in his seat, met a look that told him things were worse than ever.

He would have given his new hat if he had not seen it, for let him work as he would at his lessons, that look, with what it promised for recess, hung about him like some ugly hobgoblin all the morning, and seemed to put a twist into everything. He called Eheu a noun, and said the Barbadoes were in the Arctic ocean, and finished an algebra example, on the blackboard, in long division, and altogether, when recess came, he felt so completely down that he didn’t care about going out at all, and if he had cared ever so much, he would not have come across Hal for all the recesses in the quarter. So he sat at his desk, and heard the shouts of some tremendous fun coming up to his window, and when the rest came in all aglow with October sun and air, his head ached, and he couldn’t see head or tail to the lesson that lay before him.

But one o’clock came at last; out poured the stream again, and luckless Tom ran on with the rest, hoping that the tide swelled high enough to hide him between the waves, but they parted just in time to let Hal get a glimpse of him.

“Hallo, Checkmaty!” he shouted, “how are bishops this morning? Don’t you want to send your compliments to a fellow’s queen?”

“Checkmaty?” echoed Ned Farraday, a boy in the next class to Tom’s; “what’s that? Did you corner him?”

“Corner him! you ought to have seen me wind him up last night! There wasn’t as much left of him as would point off a fraction. If he had been as slow with his moves as he was in getting to school this morning, he might have done better. How’s that tardy mark going to look on the report, my man? ’Twont help much towards your three hundred, eh?”

“I wasn’t tardy!” answered Tom defiantly, for the question of the three hundred was too tender to bear touching.

“Oh, you weren’t!” cried Hal. “Wasn’t he, boys? you saw as well as I did.”

“Didn’t he get in?” asked one of the boys. “I didn’t see.”

“Get in!” said Ned Farraday, taking up the keynote Hal had given; “I should think not much! The door was shut fair and square before it saw his shadow. If anybody don’t believe it they can look on the book and see.”

“Look on the book and see,” set up a chorus of voices on all sides.

“I tell you there’s no mark there,” declared Tom again, getting very red, and the miserable feeling that had got as far as his pockets last night, was running down to his very boots.

“I wouldn’t say much about marks if I were you, Ned Farraday,” called out a boy a little larger than he. “I heard the professor call your Latin a failure, and that marks you down to six, and you know very well if Tom was tardy it only marks him eight.”

Ned grew red in his turn and drew in his horns at once, but Hal went on.

“I say, Checkmaty, how long has Eheu been a noun? Ever since it meant a lass, hasn’t it?”

“And I say,” interposed a voice that had not yet spoken, “what’s the use of badgering a fellow that’s smaller than any nine out of ten of you here, and can keep up with the best of you if you only give him a chance. I heard the professor say Tom was six months ahead of his age in his classes; and as for this morning, you know well enough there’s no tardy mark when the door hasn’t been locked. Why can’t you be men enough to see there’s no fun in crowding a fellow? Come along, Tom; we’re going to have a game of base-ball this afternoon, and I want you for first pitcher. Let’s all go and get dinner, and be on the ground at four o’clock.”

It was Aleck Halliday, and Tom had felt his heart come up out of his boots with a great thump the instant he heard his voice, for he knew well enough it never spoke except to make somebody feel all right, if not positively jolly.

He slipped over to Aleck’s side and walked along feeling safe in the shadow of his tall shoulders, and almost sunshiny once more in the light of his handsome, friendly face. Tom had often wondered what Aleck was made of; he was sure there was some material in his composition very different from what went into other boys, but he had never quite decided whether it was what usually went to make up princes, or something higher still and supposed to have wings. Any how, a boy that was being “badgered,” as he called it, might be sure Aleck would fume and chafe a few minutes, as a great, noble Newfoundland might watch a cat worrying a mouse, and then, when he couldn’t bear it any longer, plunge in and scatter the sport, and stand guard by some little nook or cranny till the victim had a chance to escape. And as for the badgerers, an indefinite suspicion that they had been doing something mean was very sure to creep over them, and the ghost of an idea that it might be nobler sport to help a fellow along, than to push him down, would glimmer faintly at them from a distance; but unfortunately this never lasted long, and they were pretty sure to be ready for the next mouse that might come in their way.

But for this time the fun was over; Tom was safe, and the mousers scattered off in search of a more substantial mouthful in the shape of dinner, and one or two lessons to be got well in hand before four o’clock, so that no demands of body or brain should interfere with the promised fun on the ball-ground.

No one was more fond of the game than Tom; and though he was the smallest boy in his set, he was considered one of the best players, for he was swift as a deer, and had a true eye and hand, and a deal of pluck at carrying out what he undertook; that is to say, so long as nobody snubbed him, but that was the one thing he could not stand, and the moment anybody did it, he felt everything that would ever make a man of him oozing out at his finger-ends, and was ready to knock under for ever. He wished he wasn’t such a little fool about it; other boys snubbed each other, and were snubbed in turn a hundred times a day, and never seemed to mind it much, but it was no use with him. If there were only more Aleck Hallidays! But never mind. He was going to play a good game this afternoon, he felt it in his bones, and perhaps Hal would think something of him again, if he made a first-rate run for his side—of course he would be on his side if he were to play with Aleck.

But to his surprise he found Hal had decided to play a match-game against Aleck; and Tom, feeling pretty strong under his captain’s shadow, ventured to prophesy a victory for his own side.

“Where are you going to get it?” asked Hal.

“We’ve got better fellows on our side than you have,” answered Tom, with an innocent idea that the truth should be spoken at all times.

“I suppose you count yourself among them,” said Hal with a sneer; “name them over, and when they play.”

“No, I don’t count myself among them,” said Tom, wishing he had sense enough to let things alone; but Aleck calling to Hal just then to choose an umpire, the mouse ran off once more.

The umpire and the scorer were soon chosen; the umpire pitched up a cent, which coming down in Aleck’s favor, gave him his choice of innings, and he of course chose the second.

As Hal was captain of his side, he struck first, and sent the ball a little beyond Tom, who was pitcher. Tom picked it up and threw it to the first-baseman, who caught it on the fly just as Hal was a single step from the base.

Tom halloed for judgment, but Hal was pronounced “not out” by the umpire.

“That isn’t fair,” said Tom.

“I say it is,” said Hal.

“It’s not. I wouldn’t play to it, Tom,” cried his left-fielder.

“Well, your side can get some one else, then,” said Hal.

“Never mind,” said the catcher on Tom’s side; “let’s draw lots for a ‘say so.’” The lot was drawn, and gave the decision in Hal’s favor.

“Three grunts for Tom,” said Hal, with the same disagreeable chuckle that had worried Tom so much the night before.

“No, no,” cried Aleck; “it was out by fair rights.”

“You’re not going to dispute the umpire, are you?” said Hal; but the umpire called time, and the game went on.

At Tom’s next pitch, Hal ran for the second base; but the catcher was too quick for him, throwing the ball to the second-baseman, who caught it, and this time Hal was fairly out.

“Judgment on that,” cried Hal and the second-baseman.

“Out on the second,” said the umpire.

“There!” cried Tom as Hal went past him; “that proves it was out on the first, anyhow. A pretty place a player like you gets into when he calls for judgment.”

Tom’s side was now in; if he could only do something that would put him for once above the range of Hal’s success! Fired with this hope and with the thought of winning laurels for such a captain as he had, he took up the bat with the determination to do something brilliant; but venturing one glance at Hal, caught sight of a sideways gesture that he knew well enough was meant to remind him of the fatal swoop of Hal’s bishops the night before, his hand faltered, and the ball, instead of taking the direction he intended, struck directly in front of him. There was no chance now but in his heels, and flying like a deer, he made the first three bases successfully, but that was all. On the home-base, he could not tell how it happened, he was put out by the catcher.

“Aha!” came up a taunting laugh from Hal’s side; “there’s a case that don’t call for judgment very much;” and Tom walked off and sat down by some of his fellows, feeling miserable enough. What was the reason all games were so disagreeable, no matter how hard a fellow tried to do his best?

“Never mind, Tom,” said Aleck’s cheery voice, “Davis will make up for it, and you got those three bases handsomely.”

Tom looked up; he hadn’t ventured to raise his eyes before, lest Aleck should show that he had disappointed him; but there he was, with just as friendly a glow in his face as if Tom had covered him with glory. Tom felt his heart warming under it again in an instant, and in another moment Carter, the catcher, had knocked the ball down beyond the centre-field, and got a home-run.

Tom felt all right again now, and began to cheer on the other men to do their best, determined that he would bring in his own honors when his turn came again. The next three runners got a score apiece, but the fourth knocked a fly to left field, and was out; the next got out on two strikes and Hal’s side was in again, with ten runs ahead when they took the field.

The game however went on pretty equally. Aleck played his best, though there were some mishaps and disappointments on each side, until the eight inning, when Tom’s side got fairly “choked,” and left Hal’s still ahead by ten runs.

“Who did you say had the best fellows on his side?” asked Hal triumphantly, as he passed near Tom.

“Now Tom, my boy,” said Aleck, “this is our last chance; show us your best playing and help the others on, and we’ll beat them yet.”

This was enough to have spurred Tom on to meet the thunders of a real battle-field, if Aleck’s honor had demanded it, and he took his place with all the determination of a Trojan.

But Hal saw it was his last chance too, and waiting till his second baseman, who was also his second best man, was ready, told him to strike directly for Tom and “scare him.” Tom started and thought he was in time, but a cry from Hal of “There’s a queen’s head for you, Checkmaty! Catch her!” flew faster than the ball. It came too disagreeably on top of the surprise; Tom muffed the ball, and three groans were set up from the other side.

Tom never could do anything after he had been hooted. He made a failure of everything that followed. The rest seemed to catch discouragement from him, and the game ended in favor of Hal’s side, with a majority of eleven, the score being forty-one to thirty.

The boys crowded together to discuss the game, but Tom had a prodigious amount of something to do at a distance. He could hear Aleck’s catcher trying to prove that the second baseman had been all wrong somewhere, and Hal’s triumphant laugh came floating down to where he stood; he wouldn’t have gone any nearer him to hear all the discussions in the world. And as for Aleck! he was sure he’d find it hard to forgive him, this time, if never before.

He managed to slip off one side of the crowd, without much notice, and made the best of his way toward home. What was the reason things always went wrong that he had anything to do with? Other boys didn’t seem to have half the trouble, or else they didn’t mind it as much. But he was sure Carter must have felt horridly to have Davis trying to make out that he had done just the wrong thing, and the rest all seemed so eager to have it proved. He wondered why there couldn’t be some pleasure in proving a fellow had done well now and then; but there couldn’t be, for nobody ever seemed to like it.

“I say, Tom,” shouted a voice behind him, and there was Aleck, overtaking him with long strides.

“I say, Tom—hallo, old fellow, you’re not drawing such a long face as that over a game of ball are you? It isn’t worth it, my man! It’s fun enough while it lasts, but nothing after it’s over.”

“I was afraid you’d think it all my fault,” Tom managed to say, though dreading even the sound of his own words.

“All your fault! Nonsense! you made as good a score as any of them, and some of the others were out on more runs than you. I didn’t play any too well myself, but ’twas the way luck would have it, I suppose, and we’ll beat them all the same next time. But I was going to say, you’ve been helping me all the afternoon, and I thought you were bothered with those examples this morning; don’t you want a lift before to-morrow?”

“Helping him!” Tom could have hugged the ground he walked on!

CHAPTER VI.

How the October and November days flitted away! And when one knew that December was coming, and the wheels of the queer chair could never rattle over the frozen ground and plough through the snow! It made no difference, time scurried on just the same. The only comfort was in making the most of it, and that was certainly done at the almshouse. Nobody counted the number of times the wheel-chair was seen going slowly and carefully down toward the wonderful world that lay out beyond the turn, or up the other way toward the city. And sure as the hour came round, there was Sue ready for her part in the doctor’s programme, and many a time the work carried her back to old days until she forgot her bargain, and the half hour stretched on into two or three times its length. How the pages were turned over in that arithmetic! But that wasn’t all for Creepy. There were the doctor’s visits! When he was there, such wonder, and such content; and when he was gone, there were the hours to be counted till he would come again. Every one in the house came to know the sound of the black horse’s trot, coming down the road, and just how many seconds might be allowed between its being reined up and the doctor’s having his hand on the door-knob. Very few they were, the listeners soon found; there was hardly time for Creepy’s heart to give a bound and say, “There he is!” But after he was once at Creepy’s side, no one would have dreamed that he was in a hurry. Time enough to hear just how many drives Enoch had given him, and to see the lessons that had been gone over, and to ask here and there, carelessly as it seemed, about the pain, and how the medicines were going. Then there was always a little chat about what he had seen going on in the city, and what the boys were doing there, so that, as he used to say laughing, Creepy shouldn’t be altogether behind the times when he took his place among them. Then a moment with Mrs. Ganderby, or a compliment to Enoch, or Sue, and he was off again.

And all the while the days were slipping by, until November, dull and grim as some of its last hours had been, was fairly crowded out, the ground was frozen hard, and a few flakes of snow came fluttering down. Then the doctor found Enoch standing, cap in hand, in the hall, looking at the crooked chair, which, if it had been queer at first, was certainly queerer still since he had rigged the “running-gear.”

“Is there any trouble, Enoch?” he asked, for the old carpenter was running his hand through his hair, and with the most uncomfortable expression upon his face.

“Ah, sir, you never came in better time,” said Enoch; “it’s plain enough there’ll be no further use for these wheels this year, and they make an awkward thing to be standing about in the way; and yet it’s a job I don’t like to put my hand to, to undo a piece of work like that. And it’s only a few months after all.”

“A few months till when?” asked the doctor.

“Why, sir, till they’re wanted again,” said Enoch, staring in the wonder whether the doctor had asked a stupid question for once.

“Well,” said the doctor, “if you intend to keep a hospital here for broken legs and crippled children, I advise you to take good care of your wheels, but so far as my little patient is concerned, the sooner you make kindling-wood of them the better. I intend to have him walking into the city every day when the roads are settled again in the spring.”

Enoch’s stare grew ten times broader, but it was of no use. The doctor was gone, and if he had not been, Enoch would never have dared to ask him which of them had lost his senses.

“Now, my little man,” he was just that moment saying to Creepy, “we’ve come to a corner in our line of march. I’m not satisfied with what we’ve been doing for that pain, but I wouldn’t fight it any harder while these pleasant days lasted. There’s not going to be much getting out, I’m afraid, for a while, and this is the time to take. Suppose I should want to do something now and then that would make the pain seem even worse for a little while, would you have courage to try it with me?”

Up to Creepy’s mind rushed a story that Ben used always to be telling whenever anything came along that seemed a little hard to bear, about a certain slave, a great while ago and a great way off, Ben did not remember when or where, but he believed it was in the East, wherever that might be. And he did not remember what his name was, but that did not matter; he knew that his master one day ordered him to be beaten for a trifle, and when some one asked how he could bear it so patiently, he answered, “Shall I receive so much good at the hand of my master, and shall I not receive this little evil also?” And his master, hearing of it, was so filled with admiration that he gave him his liberty, and he became a famous philosopher.

But Creepy could not have told the doctor about it for his life, so he only nodded, and said,

“I am not afraid.”

“Good,” said the doctor; “and you need not be. It is only that there will be some days when things look rather forlorn, but every one of them is bringing you nearer to spring, and don’t forget that we are going fishing together when that time comes.”

So on went the weeks, and the days of pain came in among them here and there; but there were so many other things to think of! The arithmetic was no longer the only book, by any means; a geography and a copy-book came along one after the other, and for times when he did not feel like using those, there were stories enough to be read. But the doctor’s visits were more than all the books, and the great eyelids did not droop any more when he came, but Creepy had learned to look him square in the face, whatever incredible thing he might be saying. But he would not come this morning; that was certain enough, he thought, as he sat looking out of the window at the snow that came drifting through the air until it seemed the clouds themselves were falling. Faster and thicker every moment, and yet it had been coming all night; the trees were groaning under their loads, the drifts were like great ocean-waves up and down the road, and the grass-seeds the doctor had scattered over the path in the fall were buried ten times deeper than ever before; for though Enoch had had his shovel ready ever since breakfast, there it stood by the old clock; there was no use turning out to make paths yet.

So Creepy stood at the window, just waiting to see what would happen next, until his eyes were almost blinded; but there was certainly something coming down the road! Only a little dark object at first, but nearer and larger every moment. The black horse and his sleigh! And almost before Creepy could rub his eyes and try to see more surely, they were at the gate, Enoch’s path was broken for him, and the doctor was at the door shaking the snow from his shoulders and taking off his fur cap to knock down a pyramid from the crown, before Mrs. Ganderby should find it melting over her floor.

“So you thought it was the sheeted ghost of myself, eh?” he said, laughing, as Creepy opened the door; and Creepy laughed too, for that was one of the things he had learned of late, though not from any book. “You’re mistaken, sir; I never was heartier in my life. There’s nothing like fighting a storm, to send one’s blood gayly to his finger-ends. And how are you this morning, my little man? Brave and well? Not quite equal to breasting this weather yet, eh?” and he stooped with one of those quick looks into Creepy’s face that always made his heart leap up into his throat.

And the weather, as if finding that it had done its worst and troubled nobody, took a new tack; the clouds shut their gates and drew off, then began to break away, and by the time the doctor was ready to go, were rolling like great fleeces over a blue sky, and the sun was pouring down, and the whole work of the storm lay in one measureless, glorious glitter over the earth.

“It looks well this morning, doesn’t it, this world that we own?” said the doctor, as he snatched a glance while he drew on his overcoat. “A pretty proud bit of ownership for us all, I think, don’t you? Some of its treasures may not be distributed just even, all around, but the thing itself belongs to us. Eh, my man?”

What was he saying? Who? He said a great many things that seemed like dreaming, and yet, he surely would not say them, if they did not seem real to him!

As for a bit of this life belonging to Creepy, he didn’t call that a dream any longer, since he had the doctor’s friendship; it seemed to him he not only lived, but basked in the sunshine, since that joy had come in. But God’s world, the real, great, wonderful world that lay out beyond the turn in the road, out beyond the city even, stretching away into beauty and treasure that he often tired himself with trying to imagine; ah, that could never be! That was for the well and the strong and the rich; for people who rode in their carriages, and would only think him fit to run after them and open the carriage-door. For the doctor too, of course, for every one ran after him, and he would be rich some day. But for himself—

The doctor stooped, shot a look into his eyes, and saw it all. In another moment he had lifted Creepy gently in his arms, as he did that first day under the old butternut, and was holding his face right before his own.

“Look here, my little man,” he was saying, “I want to have this thing understood once for all. I have been trying to put some new ideas into this head of yours, these three months now, but I have not succeeded as well as I wish, and I must see if I can make myself understood this time. Who do you think made this world, and who do you think He made it for, this King of ours who has taught us all to call him Father? Don’t you know that whatever a king owns, the princes have a share in as heirs; and more than that, there’s a dominion set apart for them now and then, as a birthright? This is a great, glorious, beautiful world, as everything our King makes is, and he made it for us, his children; and the Prince Royal, our Elder Brother, who came and walked among us, bought it again for us by his life and his death, after things began to go wrong. I tell you, my boy, we’re of royal blood, you and I, just as much as the greatest man that other men bow down to; we can’t be more than the children of the King, any of us. Only see to it that you keep close to the Prince Royal, and follow his steps like a child of the house, and you can claim your share with the tallest and the strongest of the sons. And if you don’t get hold of a square acre that men will call your own, in the course of your life, you can look at the blue hills and the soft skies, and walk among the broad fields and the flowers, with just as happy and as glad a throb in your heart as the people who have paid thousands for them. Do you understand, little man? Do you believe what I say?”

Once more Creepy couldn’t have spoken for his life; but though the understanding and the believing that the doctor was asking for were only stealing over the edge of his heart, like the first ray of morning, yet they were making a glow there not so very different from the rosy light he had seen the dawn spread over the snow-drift under his window. It flushed up to his cheek with very much the same color, and satisfied the doctor better than words could have done. With the same quiet, gentle pressure that Creepy remembered so well, he placed him in his chair again and was gone.

He was gone, and Creepy stood by the window once more; but was it the same little almshouse cripple that had looked out from it in the morning? It seemed to him that chains had fallen from him, as his heart opened wider and wider to the doctor’s words. The warm glow grew to a great throbbing joy, and he felt himself stretching up from the stunted little soul he had been, and almost laying his hand upon things more joyful than he had ever dreamed that even a strong man could reach.

The Prince Royal his Elder Brother? That meant the Lord Christ, of course. The doctor had spoken of him more than once, but Creepy had not dared put the “all but me,” aside then. But why not? Keep close to Him? Why shouldn’t he? Didn’t he come close to the doctor? and wasn’t the Lord Jesus like him, only a thousand times stronger, and wiser and gentler even than he; for wasn’t He a physician himself when He was here, and wasn’t He always the same? Did He not call the weak and the lame to Him, and did He not once take some of them in his arms, just as the doctor had taken him to-day? Children of the King, and the Elder Brother sharing his birthright with them? Oh, how different the world looked this time out of the queer old window! He stood still and almost held his breath, for it seemed to him as he looked up into the blue sky, that he felt some one drawing near, and the same bewildering joy that had come when he first felt the doctor’s arms around him, rose up in his heart once more, only stronger and deeper than before. For was not this some one who would never go away?

“Which I did say,” exclaimed Mrs. Ganderby to Sue, a few days afterwards, as Creepy passed through the room with two or three of his precious books in his hand, “which I did say wonders never would cease; and here is the showing of it before our own eyes, for I mentioned at the same time that sometimes doctors cure and sometimes they kill, and sometimes they do neither one nor the other; and here it is, not only that he’s getting the poor crooked thing where he’s going about so light on his feet that the name Creepy will soon be no further use to him; but the child that I thought would never learn to look anybody in the face otherwise than to beg their pardon for being in the world at all, is certainly getting a way of holding up his head and going about as if he’d found out that his soul was his own, in spite of anything that heaven or some people that were lower hadn’t seen fit to do for his body, which there is no one could be more pleased than myself to look on and see it, though if it isn’t altogether like a miracle of the olden times, I don’t know what any one could put themselves about to call it.”