University of Virginia Library

4. Chapter IV.
The Weasel and Samson.

THE cry of “stop thief!” served only to quicken the
motions of Bob the Weasel, who dashed down the
uneven and rickety stairs, and through narrow passages,
out into the brick-walled court, with a celerity not inferior
to that of the little animal whose name had been applied
to him by his fellow-newsboys. The tenants scarcely
noticed his agile and diminutive figure, ere it had emerged
from their neighborhood, and was flying down an adjoining
street, over heaps of unshovelled snow. Arrived at a
point which he judged to be beyond danger, Bob paused
to recover breath, and, kicking away the drift upon a
door-step, sat himself down to rest, just as a somewhat
older lad darted around the adjoining corner, crying the
morning papers at the top of his voice.

“Hillo, Weasel!” ejaculated the latter, recognizing a
fellow-professional: “where's your papers? Is you retired
from business, Weasel?”

“Sellin' papers is all up, this mornin', I'm afeared,”
returned Bob. “But I haven't bought none, and so I
shan't be stuck.”

“Nobody's out—that's a fact,” rejoined the other, lugubriously.

“All the streets is blocked up, and no cars
don't run nu'ther.”

“Give us half a dozen, and I'll sell 'em anyhow,” said
the Weasel, drawing some change from his pocket. “Two
'Eralds, and two Times, and two Tribunes! yes, and two
Suns, if you like, Smokyback.”

The Weasel made this demand with a very business-like
air, and it was responded to in like manner by his
confrère, who counted out the papers, received the change,
and was off, the next instant, in chase of a pedestrian
whom he discovered plodding through an opposite snowbank.
Bob counted his purchase with great deliberation,
and was about to resume his travel, when the door before
which he had seated himself opened slowly, and an old
man appeared on the threshold.

“Paper, sir—mornin' papers?” were the quick exclamations
of the Weasel, the instant that his sharp eye caught
a glimpse of the moving door.

“Yes, lad—come here!” replied the old gentleman,
whose figure was bent almost double, and who leaned on
an ivory-headed cane. His attire was a threadbare camlet
cloak, fastened about the neck by clasps of brass, and a
suit of rusty black, well-patched and worn shiny, like the
cloak. His head was covered with a broad-brimmed napless
hat, beneath which his grey curls escaped, falling on
either side of the face. His eyes were of a clear blue,
and very bright, and there was a ruddy hue on his cheek,
and a gentle expression about the lips, that struck the
Weasel as very pleasant to see.

“Come in, my lad, to the hall; for I have yet to make

out the change,” said the old man. “Samson has gone
early to the post-office, and the carrier left us no paper
this morning.” He began to fumble in his pocket, as he
said this.

“Please, sir, it's such a bad storm, the carriers has a
hard time,” suggested Bob, encouraged, by the old gentleman's
invitation, to edge forward, and step upon the doormat.

“Yes, yes—it was indeed a terrible storm! Ah! here
is a shilling! Yes—a grievous storm! God help the
poor! Here, my boy—can you make change? Yes!
God pity those who must be out in such storms!”

The Weasel looked up scrutinizingly to the old gentleman's
face, and saw his eyelids wet, as with a tear, and at
that moment Bob forgot to count, penny by penny, the
change which he was tendering for a shilling piece.

“Please, sir,” he said, hesitatingly, and scratching the
door-mat with his half-shod feet, “I—I was out in that
storm, last night, and”—

Here the Weasel stopped short, alarmed at his own
boldness; but the expression of the old gentleman's face
was reassuring.

“Bless me, child! what were you doing out?” exclaimed
the latter.

“With a little girl—arter one o'clock, in the big drifts
down Broadway!—a little girl so-high!” cried the Weasel,
indicating the supposed stature of Fanny by a motion
of his hand downward, to the floor.

“Poor children! Were you lost?” inquired the aged
man, with much simplicity.

“No, sir!” answered Bob, with emphasis; “you can't
git me lost, nohow.”

“What were you doing away from home, my little
boy?”

“Home!” repeated Bob, with a curious expression on
his face, as he let his glance fall to the door-mat, “supposin'
a feller hain't got no home?”

“My gracious!” exclaimed the old gentleman, compressing
his lips, and elevating his brows, to examine the
newsboy more attentively. “Do you tell me you have no
home, my child? Where, then, do you live?—where do
you sleep?”

“Sometimes in a wagon, and sometimes in a barrel,”
returned the Weasel, sententiously.

“Bless me!” cried the old gentleman, drawing a long
breath, as he continued to survey the curious little figure
before him. Then, shaking his head, while a sad expression
came over his benevolent countenance—“I fear you
are telling me untruths,” he added, solemnly.

“No, I ain't,” cried Bob, raising his voice, and looking
straight upward to his companion.

“I hope not, my boy,” said the latter. “But what you
tell me is very improbable. Have you no parents?”

“Nary one,” answered Bob.

“What is your name?”

“Which name?”

“Why, bless me! the name you go by!”

“Bob the Weasel.”

“There, now!” exclaimed the old gentleman, getting
quite red in the face. “You are I fear, a sad little boy!

you are making game of me! It is very wrong—very
wrong, my lad! Now, go!—there! I'm sorry—very
sorry!”

Bob felt his temper rising, and he was about to reply
angrily, with some expletive such as should demonstrate
his feelings; but as the old man turned his head, the
newsboy saw that a big tear was staining the ruddy
cheek.

“My! what a funny old cove!” he said to himself, and
with this reflective observation, was about to retire, when
he bethought him that he still held the change for his
customer's shilling.

“Here's your change, mister,” said the Weasel.

“Keep the money, boy, and never tell falsehoods any
more! It's wrong—very wrong!”

“You be blowed!” cried Bob, indignantly; and, flinging
the pennies at the old man's feet, the sprang, with a
loud whoop, through the open door, just in time to dash
himself full against the stomach of an old negro man
of herculean proportions, who had just ascended the
steps.

“Sakes alive!” ejaculated the new-comer, as the newsboy's
thin form rebounded from his own, almost doubling
him, at the same time, like the old gentleman within.
“What am dat?” Then, recovering himself, he stepped
cautiously in, and glanced with astonishment about him.

“Poor lad! is he hurt? Look, Samson—look!” cried
the master, observing that the newsboy lay without motion
on the floor. The negro stooped, and lifting the weazen
face, saw that it had become ghastly pale, and that blood

was slowly trickling from a cut which had been inflicted
by a projecting moulding of the cornice.

“Bress de chile?” exclaimed the black; “what for he
dash hisself agin me? O massa! I'se feared he quite
dead! Ugh!”

“Nonsense, Samson! lift him gently, and carry him
into the library. Dear me! this is so painful! Poor
child! Was he frightened at me!”

Saying this, the old gentleman hurried through the hall,
in advance of the negro, who lifted the Weasel like an
infant in his strong arms, and carried him gently to the
library, where burned a bright fire of sea-coal, while a
sofa, piled with cushions, was wheeled to one side of it.
On this sofa the wounded lad was placed, while the master
rang a little silver bell, which was immediately answered
by the appearance of an old lady, clad in a black stuff
gown, with a spotless kerchief crossed over her bosom,
and a high-starched cap crowning her evenly-parted grey
hair. This matronly-looking personage paused in astonishment,
as she beheld the object on the sofa, and clasping
her hands together impressively, exclaimed:

“Laws! me! what a dirty child!”

“Please to look at the child's head, for the present,
madam,” remarked the old gentleman, somewhat stiffly.
“I fear he is hurt seriously.

“And what an old face for a child!” pursued the lady,
as she inspected the Weasel more closely.

“Bless me, madam! have you no feeling? Can you
not see the boy is wounded? Here, Samson! Samson!
go for a doctor, at once, as Mrs. George is so critical!”

Samson rolled up his eyes, as if in astonishment at his
master's unwonted agitation; and Mrs. George herself
seemed to be rebuked; for she proceeded at once to
adjust the pillows under Bob's head, and then bustled
away to procure sponge and water to bathe the “beggar's
head,” as she mutteringly expressed herself, though not
loud enough to reach the master's ears.

“I fear Mrs. George has not proper feeling,” said the
old gentleman, sadly. “But, I dare say she knows more
than I about these boys. Samson, what do you think this
child said?—that he has no home, and sleeps in—bless
me!—in a barrel!”

“Berry likely, massa!” rejoined the negro, showing his
white teeth.

“What, what, Samson! was it true, do you think?
And his name, he said, was—`Bob the Weasel!”'

“Berry probably, massa. Dey gib sich quare names to
de newsboys. Dat am sartain, massa.”

“Goodness! then I must have wronged the poor child;
and he was not telling untruths, at all. Poor boy! poor
boy!”

The old gentleman, all unheedful of the dirt which
Mrs. George found so distasteful, here patted softly the
matted hair of the newsboy, as it fell over his pallid
cheek; at which caressing movement, Mrs. George, entering,
at the moment, with washes and linen, could not
repress an expression of alarm.

“Mercy on us, Mr. Granby!—supposing that child
should have something catching!”

“Samson, had you not better dress the lad's cut, as

Mrs. George is timid?” asked the master, in a quiet tone,
which had the effect of disposing the trim housekeeper to
a silent application of her remedial skill; while the old
gentleman himself looked on, with hands clasped behind
him; Samson, meantime, removing the threadbare camlet
cloak that had enveloped his person.

“Sleeps in wagons and barrels, and is named after a
weasel!” murmured Mr. Granby. “What a very curious
child, Samson!”

“Dis is a berry cur'ous world, massa.”

“That is true, Samson; and the saying is likewise true,
that one half the world knows not what the other half
suffers—or how it lives! But this child said he was out
in the dreadful storm of last night, and with another
baby like himself! Could that have been true, Samson?”

“Dese newsboys am berry tough,” suggested the negro.

“But another—a little girl with him, in the violent
storm!”

“Mebbe it was a fib, and mebbe not,” was Samson's
non-committal response. “You nebber knows how to
take dese boys.”

“We must see—we must inquire,” said Mr. Granby.
“It is a strange matter. Ah! thank God! he revives—
his eyes are open!” continued the good old man, as the
color began to return to Bob's face, under the emollient
stimulus which the housekeeper had applied. “How do
you feel, my poor boy?”

The Weasel's glance wandered vacantly round, for his
faintness had been as much the result of exhaustion from

watching and abstinence, as the effect of his sudden
shock; his poor thin lips fluttered, and half breathed a
word.

“What does he say, Mrs. George?”

“I thought he said `Fanny!”'

“It must be his sister. Perhaps it was she who was
with him in the storm. Hush! he is trying to speak
again!”

“What an odd creature, to be sure!” remarked the
housekeeper, listening to the half-formed syllables. “What
on earth can he mean by that?”

“What is it, Mrs. George?”

“He says `Potter's Field!' First `Fanny,' and now
`Potter's Field!' What connection can there be between
the two? He's an odd boy, I do declare!”

Mrs. George! you are wise in your generation, and
have a horror of uncleanliness, as every good housewife
should. But you are not wise as regards the human
heart!—nor of the heart which throbs faintly beneath
the coarse jacket of that outcast newsboy—Bob the
Weasel!

“What does he say now, Mrs. George? Bless me!
he has fainted again!”

“He has, indeed, and is quite cold!” exclaimed the
housekeeper, now much alarmed.

“Samson, you had better go for a doctor!”

“No, no! the cut is not deep! He is very weak,”
said Mrs. George. “Poor child! Perhaps he is
starving.”

And with this thought, the good woman seemed suddenly

to forget the dirt and shabbiness of Bob, and proceeded
to apply new lotions and administer restoring
stimulants, to her charge which soon had the effect of
imparting strength to his feeble frame. In an hour longer,
he was sitting up, propped by the pillows of Mr. Granby's
sofa, and relating to that wondering old gentleman the
particulars of his acquaintance with Fanny the orphan—
of their midnight tramp through the snow, and of their
lonely watch by the corpse, in cold and darkness. Samson
stood behind his master's arm-chair, with mouth and eyes
distended. Mr. Granby listened, with many nods of the
head and upliftings of the hand, and even Mrs. George
lost sight entirely of the weazen face, while she followed
the Weasel's quaint recital, with newly-awakened sympathy.

The result of the narration (for Bob had been previously
regaled with a nourishing repast) was a direction
from Mr. Grauby to Mrs. George to allow the child to
have a sound sleep upon the cushions, while himself, accompanied
by Samson, would proceed as soon as possible to
Kolephat College, there to ascertain the condition of the
orphan Fanny.

“That's what the poor boy meant by `Fanny,”' said
the master to his man, as, wrapped once more in his
camlet cloak, he led the way to the street.

“And `Potter's Field,' massa! Dat's de connection
Missy George couldn't find out.”