Then she
unfastened the bundle. "I guess I'll see what you've got for clothes,"
said she, and her tone was as motherly as she could make it towards this
outcast Dickey boy. She laid out his pitiful little wardrobe, and
examined the small ragged shirt or two and the fragmentary stockings. "I
guess I shall have to buy you some things if you are a good boy," said
she. "What have you got in that box?"--the boy hung his head--"I hope
you ain't got a pistol?"
"No, marm."
"You ain't got any powder, nor anything of that kind?"
"No, marm." The boy was blushing confusedly.
"I hope you're tellin' me the truth," Mrs. Rose said, and her tone was
full of severe admonition.
"Yes, marm." The tears rolled down the boy's cheeks, and Mrs. Rose said
no more. She told him she would call him in the morning, and to be
careful about his lamp. Then she left him. The Dickey boy lay awake, and
cried an hour; then he went to sleep, and slept as soundly as Willy Rose
in his snug little bedroom leading out of his mother's room. Miss Elvira
and Mrs. Rose locked their doors that night, through distrust of that
little boy down-stairs who came of a thieving family. Miss Elvira put
her gold watch and her breastpin and her pocket-book, with seventeen
dollars in it, under the feather-bed; and Mrs. Rose carried the silver
teaspoons up-stairs, and hid them under hers. The Dickey boy was not
supposed to know they were in the house--the pewter ones had been used
for supper--but that did not signify; she thought it best to be on the
safe side.
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