University of Virginia Library

4. IV.

The new situation was anything but agreeable. Ward was
obliged to perform many servile offices, such as tending the
bell, carrying in the coal and out the ashes, sweeping pavements,
and, in short, was made a sort of boy-of-all-work. His
bed was a hard one, and in a cold, empty garret—not by any
means so comfortable as the feather-bed with the patch-work
counterpane by the great blazing fire at home; and sometimes,
as he lay in the cold and dark, he wished he had never gone
from the quiet old cottage. Even the cow and the dog drew
him toward them with almost a human interest. The food was
such as he had not been accustomed to eat, and was less to his
taste; the cold and half-cooked beefsteak was less agreeable to
him than the potatoes roasted at home in the ashes. But
through the hardships and privations of the first month, he
cheered himself with the idea of receiving some money at its
close, and of going home; when, however, the long time expired,
and he ventured to hint his wishes, the publisher coolly told
him he had hardly earned his bread and lodging, and that to
go home was quite out of the question if he expected to continue
in his employ—that boys who could not live away from
their mothers were usually good for nothing. If he would stay,
nevertheless, till the next New-Years, and gave satisfaction as a
carrier, and make himself useful about the house, he would give
him fifty dollars.

“But you give John Dick more, a good deal,” urged Ward,
timidly.

“What I give other folks has nothing to do with you; and
if you wish, you can go further and fare worse—I can get
a hundred boys for less money.”

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357

Ward with difficulty refrained from crying as he said he
would go and ask his uncle Job, and whatever he decided for
him he would do. John was not at home when Ward arrived
there, and he was glad of it, and almost hoped another “pison
bee” would sting him. Uncle Job had gone out to buy calves,
but Aunt Dick was in the kitchen, good-natured as ever, baking
pies, and she gave a whole hot one to Ward, telling him he
must eat it all. She said she was just trying her new stove by
baking twenty or thirty; that the old one had got full of ashes,
and almost worn out, for she had had it a year and a half, and
so had given it away, and got a new one. Ward felt so much
encouraged by her sunshiny face, her genial talk, and warm
fire, that the thought of a year seemed less terrible to him, and
he secretly resolved to stay. What a wearisome winter it
was! and as the little carrier-boy shivered along the street—
for his thin clothes and ragged shoes were but slight protection,
—no one noticed or pitied him, except myself, but I noticed
and pitied him often. Instead of leaving the paper at the gate,
as the other boys did, he brought it always and laid it on the
window-sill, beside which I sat writing. He never had anything
new—the same old cloth cap, pulled down over his eyes,
the same linsey roundabout and trowsers, and thick heavy
shoes, which gave way and gapped apart more and more every
day. I had noticed him all the winter, and while the sleet and
snow dripped from the eaves, and the daffodils came up under
the window; the old shoes were thrown aside, and the trowsers
were darned and patched, but worn still, and could not help a
deeper interest in him for a vague recollection of having seen
his childish face sometimes at Clovernook.

Now, my window was opened, and I sometimes spoke to the
boy; but, though I wished to do so, there was something about
the little fellow that prevented my offering him money. As
the summer went on, however, our acquaintance ripened slowly,
so that when it was raining, he sometimes stopped under the
porch, and I gave him apples, or other fruit; but I never talked
to him except of his occupation, the weather, or other commonplaces,
though I felt sure of his superior intelligence.