Mrs. Rose and Miss
Elvira tried to treat him as well as they treated Willy. They dressed
him in Willy's old clothes; they gave him just as much to eat; when
autumn came he was sent to school as warmly clad and as well provided
with luncheon; but they could never forget that he was a Dickey boy. He
seemed, in truth, to them like an animal of another species, in spite
of all they could do, and they regarded his virtues in the light of
uncertain tricks. Mrs. Rose never thought at any time of leaving him in
the house alone without hiding the spoons, and Miss Elvira never left
her gold watch unguarded.
Nobody knew whether the Dickey boy was aware of these lurking suspicions
or not; he was so subdued that it was impossible to tell how much he
observed. Nobody knew how homesick he was, but he went about every day
full of fierce hunger for his miserable old home. Miserable as it had
been, there had been in it a certain element of shiftless ease and
happiness. The Dickey boy's sickly mother had never chided him; she had
not cared if he tracked mud into the house. How anxiously he scraped his
feet before entering the Rose kitchen. The Dickey boy's dissipated
father had been gentle and maudlin, but never violent. All the Dickey
children had done as they chose, and they had agreed well. They were not
a quarrelsome family. Their principal faults were idleness and a general
laxity of morals which was quite removed from active wickedness.
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