Mrs. Warren, who was always ready with a stab, and who had not forgotten her encounter of two days ago, spoke up with a little malicious laugh. “Miss Hester ain’t got no family: mebbe she might take the child. ’Pears like she ought to be fond o’ childern.”
Mrs. Davis immediately came to the rescue. “We don’t expect no sich thing of Miss Hester. She’s never been around childern, an’ don’t know nothin’ about takin’ keer o’ them; an’ boys air hard to manage, anyhow.”
“Oh, I should think Miss Hester could manage ’most anything,” was the sneering rejoinder.
The women were aghast at such insolence. They didn’t know what the effect might be on Miss Prime. They looked at her in alarm. Her cold grey eye impaled Mrs. Warren for an instant only, and then, paying no more attention to her, she said quietly, “I was thinkin’ this whole matter over while I was finishin’ up my work to come here, an’, says I to myself, ‘Now there’s Melissy Davis—she’s the very one that ’ud be a mother to that child,’ says I, ‘an’ she’d bring him up right as a child should be brought up.’ I don’t know no more mannerly, nice-appearin’ childern in this neighbourhood, or the whole town, fur that matter, than Melissy’s—’ ”
“Oh, Miss Hester!” faltered Mrs. Davis.
But Miss Prime went on, unheeding the interruption. “Thinks I, ‘Melissy’s got a houseful already, an’ she can’t take another.’ Then you comes into my mind, Mis’ Austin, an’ says I, ‘La me! she’s got three herself, an’ is young yit; she’ll have her hands full to look after her own family.’ Well, I thought of you all, an’ some of you had families, an’ some of you had to go out fur day’s work; an’ then there’s some people’s hands I wouldn’t want to see the child fall into.” (This with an annihilating glance in Mrs. Warren’s direction.) “You know what the Bible says about the sins of the father; well, that child needs proper raisin’: so in this way the Lord showed it to me that it was my dooty to take up the burden myself.”
First there was an absolute silence of utter astonishment, and then, “Oh, Miss Hester!” broke from a full chorus of voices.
“You don’t reelly mean it, Miss Hester?” said Mrs. Davis.
“I do that; but I want you all to understand that it ain’t a matter of pleasure or desire with me; it’s dooty. Ef I see a chance to save a soul from perdition an’ don’t take it, I am responsible, myself, to the Lord for that soul.”
The women were almost too astounded to speak, Mrs. Warren not less than the rest of them. She had made her suggestion in derision, and here it was being acted upon in sober earnest. She was entirely routed.
“Now, Melissy, ef there ain’t no one that disagrees with me, you might as well pack up what few things the child has, an’ I’ll take him along.”
No one objected, and the few things were packed up. “Come, Freddie,” said Mrs. Davis tremulously, “get on yore hat.” The child obeyed. “You’re a-goin’ to be Miss Hester’s little boy now. You must be good.”
Miss Prime held out her hand to him, but the child drew back and held to his protectress’s skirt. A hurt expression came into the spinster’s face. It was as if the great sacrifice she was making was being belittled and rejected by a child. Mrs. Warren laughed openly.
“Come, Freddie, be nice now, dear; go with Miss Hester.”
“I want to stay with you,” cried the child.
“Pore little dear!” chorussed the women.
“But Mis’ Davis can’t keep the little boy; now he must go with Miss Prime, an’ sometimes he kin come an’ see Mis’ Davis an’ play with John an’ Harriet. Won’t that be nice?”
“I want to stay with you.”
“Come, Frederick,” said Miss Prime.
“Go now, like a good boy,” repeated Mrs. Davis. “Here’s a copper fur you; take it in yore little hand—that’s a man. Now kiss me goodbye. Kiss John an’ Harriet.”
The child, seeing that he must go, had given up resistance, and, doing as he was bidden, took Miss Prime’s hand, sobbingly. Some of us do not learn so soon to bow to the inevitable.
“Goodbye, ladies. I must git back to my work,” said Miss Hester.
“Goodbye, goodbye, Miss Hester,” came the echo.
The moment the door closed behind her and her charge, there was a volley of remarks:
“Oh, I do hope she’ll be good to him.”
“I wonder how she’ll manage him.”
“Pore child, he didn’t want to go at all.”
“Who’d have thought it of Miss Hester?”
“I wish I could have kept him myself,” said Mrs. Davis, tearfully. “It hurt my heart to see him cling to me so.”
“Never you mind, Melissy Davis; you’ve done yore whole dooty as well as you could.”
Mrs. Warren rose and put her shawl over her head preparatory to going. “As fur my part,” she said, “I’d ’a’ ruther seen that child in the childern’s home, devilment or no devilment, than where he is. He won’t dare to breathe from this hour on.”
The women were silent for a moment, and then Mrs. Davis said, “Well, Miss Hester’s well-meanin’.”
Chapter IV
At the top of the mean street on which Margaret’s house was situated, and looking down upon its meaner neighbours in much the same way that its mistress looked upon the denizens of the street, stood Miss Prime’s cottage. It was not on the mean street—it would have disdained to be—but sat exactly facing
