She made sassafras-tea, and the new boy, sitting beside Willy,
had a cup poured for him. But he did not drink much nor eat much,
although there were hot biscuits and berries and custards. He hung his
forlorn head with its shock of white hair, and only gave fleeting
glances at anything with his wild, blue eyes. He was a thin boy, smaller
than Willy, but he looked wiry and full of motion, like a wild rabbit.
After supper Mrs. Rose sent him for a pail of water; then he split up a
little pile of kindling-wood. After that he sat down on the kitchen
door-step in the soft twilight, and was silent.
Willy went into the sitting-room, where his mother and Miss Elvira were.
"He's settin' out there on the door-step, not speakin' a word," said he,
in a confidential whisper.
"Well, you had better sit down here with us and read your Sunday-school
book," said his mother. She and Miss Elvira had agreed that it was wiser
that Willy should not be too much with the Dickey boy until they knew
him better.
When it was nine o'clock Mrs. Rose showed the Dickey boy his bedroom.
She looked at him sharply; his small pale face showed red stains in the
lamplight. She thought to herself that he had been crying, and she spoke
to him as kindly as she could--she had not a caressing manner with
anybody but Willy. "I guess there's clothes enough on the bed," said
she. She looked curiously at the bundle and the wooden box.
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