It was not much short of fifty years ago—and a frosty morning. Up the naked long slant of Schoolhouse Hill the boys and girls of Petersburg village were struggling from various directions against the fierce wind, and making slow and difficult progress. The wind was not the only hindrance, nor the worst; the slope was steel-clad in frozen snow, and the foothold offered was far from trustworthy. Every now and then a boy who had almost gained the schoolhouse stepped out with too much confidence, thinking himself safe, lost his footing, struck upon his back and went skimming down the hill behind his freed sled, the straggling schoolmates scrambling out of his way and applauding as he sailed by; and in a few seconds he was at the bottom with all his work to do over again. But this was fun; fun for the boy, fun for the witnesses, fun all around; for boys and girls are ignorant and do not know trouble when they see it.

Sid Sawyer, the good boy, the model boy, the cautious boy, did not lose his footing. He brought no sled, he chose his steps with care, and he arrived in safety. Tom Sawyer brought his sled and he, also, arrived without adventure, for Huck Finn was along to help, although he was not a member of the school in these days; he merely came in order to be with Tom until school “took in.” [begin page 215] Henry BascomⒺexplanatory note arrived safely, too—Henry Bascom the new boy of last year, whose papa was a “nigger” trader and rich; a mean boy, he was, and proud of his clothes, and he had a play-slaughterhouse at home, with all the equipment, in little, of a regular slaughterhouse, and in it he slaughtered puppies and kittens exactly as beeves were done to death down at the “Point;” and he was this year’s school-bully, and was dreaded and flattered by the timid and the weak and disliked by everybody. He arrived safely because his slave-boy Jake helped him up the hill and drew his sled for him; and it wasn’t a home-made sled but a “store” sled, and was painted, and had iron-tyred runners, and came from St. Louis, and was the only store-sled in the village.

All the twenty-five or thirty boys and girls arrived at last, red and panting, and still cold, notwithstanding their yarn comforters and mufflers and mittens; and the girls flocked into the little schoolhouse and the boys packed themselves together in the shelter of its lee.

It was noticed now that a new boy was present, and this was a matter of extraordinary interest, for a new boy in the village was a rarer sight than a new comet in the sky. He was apparently about fifteen; his clothes were neat and tasty above the common, he had a good and winning face, and he was surpassingly handsome—handsome beyond imagination! His eyes were deep and rich and beautiful, and there was a modesty and dignity and grace and graciousness and charm about him which some of the boys, with a pleased surprise, recognised at once as familiar—they had encountered it in books about fairy-tale princes and that sort. They stared at him with a trying backwoods frankness, but he was tranquil and did not seem troubled by it. After looking him over, Henry Bascom pushed forward in front of the others and began in an insolent tone to question him:

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

The boy slowly shook his head, as if meaning by that that he did not understand.

“Do you hear? Answer up!”

Another slow shake.

[begin page 216] “Answer up, I tell you, or I’ll make you!”

Tom Sawyer said—

“That’s no way, Henry Bascom—it’s against the rules. If you want your fuss, and can’t wait till recess, which is regular, go at it right and fair; put a chip on your shoulder and dare him to knock it off.”

“All right; he’s got to fight, and fight now, whether he answers or not; and I’m not particular about how it’s got at.” He put a flake of ice on his shoulder and said, “There—knock it off if you dare!”

The boy looked inquiringly from face to face, and Tom stepped up and answered by signs. He touched the boy’s right hand, then flipped off the ice with his own, put it back in its place, and indicated that that was what the boy must do. The lad smiled, put out his hand, and touched the ice with his finger. Bascom launched a blow at his face which seemed to miss; the energy of it made Bascom slip on the ice, and he departed on his back for the bottom of the hill, with cordial laughter and mock applause from the boys to cheer his way.

The bell began to ring, and the little crowd swarmed into the schoolhouse and hurried to their places. The stranger found a seat apart, and was at once a target for the wondering eyes and eager whisperings of the girls. School now “began.” Archibald Ferguson, the old Scotch schoolmasterⒺexplanatory note, rapped upon his desk with his ruler, rose upon his dais and stood, with his hands together, and said “Let us pray.” After the prayer there was a hymn, then the buzz of study began, and the multiplication class was called up. It recited, up to “twelve times twelve;” then the arithmetic class followed and exposed its slates to much censure and little commendation; next came the grammar class of parsing parrots, who knew everything about grammar except how to utilize its rules in common speech.

“Spelling class!” The schoolmaster’s wandering eye now fell upon the new boy, and he countermanded that order. “Hm—a stranger? Who is it? What is your name, my boy?”

The lad rose and bowed, and said—

“Pardon, monsieur—je ne comprends pas.”

Ferguson looked astonished and pleased, and said, in French—

[begin page 217] “Ah, French—how pleasant! It is the first time I have heard that tongue in many years. I am the only person in this village who speaks it. You are very welcome; I shall be glad to renew my practice. You speak no English?”

“Not a word, sir.”

“You must try to learn it.”

“Gladly, sir.”

“It is your purpose to attend my school regularly?”

“If I may have the privilege, sir.”

“That is well. Take English only, for the present. The grammar has about thirty rules. It will be necessary to learn them by heart.”

“I already know them, sir, but I do not know what the words mean.”

“What is it you say? You know the rules of the grammar, and yet don’t know English? How can that be? When did you learn them?”

“I heard your grammar class recite the rules before entering upon the rest of their lesson.”

The teacher looked over his glasses at the boy a while, in a puzzled way, then said—

“If you know no English words, how did you know it was a grammar lesson?”

“From similarities to the French—like the word grammar itself.”

“True! You have a headpiece! You will soon get the rules by heart.”

“I know them by heart, sir.”

“Impossible! You are speaking extravagantly; you do not know what you are saying.”

[begin page 218] The boy bowed respectfully, resumed his upright position, and said nothing. The teacher felt rebuked, and said gently—

“I should not have spoken so, and am sorry. Overlook it, my boy; recite me a rule of grammar—as well as you can—never mind the mistakes.”

The boy began with the first rule and went along with his task quite simply and comfortably, dropping rule after rule unmutilated from his lips, while the teacher and the school sat with parted lips and suspended breath, listening in mute wonder. At the finish the boy bowed again, and stood, waiting. Ferguson sat silent a moment or two in his great chair, then said—

“On your honor—those rules were wholly unknown to you when you came into this house?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Upon my word I believe you, on the veracity that is written in your face. No—I don’t—I can’t. It is beyond the reach of belief. A memory like that—an ear for pronunciation like that, is of course im— why, no one in the earth has such a memory as that!”

The boy bowed, and said nothing. Again the old Scot felt rebuked, and said—

“Of course I don’t mean—I don’t really mean—er—tell me: if you could prove in some way that you have never until now—for instance, if you could repeat other things which you have heard here. Will you try?”

With engaging simplicity and serenity, and with apparently no intention of being funny, the boy began on the arithmetic lesson, and faithfully put into his report everything the teacher had said and everything the pupils had said, and imitated the voices and style of all concerned—as follows:

“Well, I give you my word it’s enough to drive a man back to the land of his fathers, and make him hide his head in the charitable heather and never more give out that he can teach the race! Five slates—five of the chiefest intelligences in the school—and look at them! Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bledⒺexplanatory note—Harry Slater! Yes, sir. Since when, is it, that 17, and 45, and 68 and 21 make 155, ye unspeakable creature? I—I—if you please, sir, Sally FitchⒺexplanatory note hunched me and I reckon it made me make a figure 9 when I was intending to make a— There’s not a 9 in the sum, you blockhead!—and ye’ll get a black mark for the lie you’ve told; a foolish lie, ill wrought and clumsy in the invention; you have no talent—stick to the truth. Becky Thatcher!Ⓔexplanatory note Yes, sir, please. Make the curtsy over again, and do it better. Yes, sir. Lower, still! Yes, sir. Very good. Now I’ll just ask you how you make out that 58 from 156 leaves 43? If you please, sir, I subtracted the 8 from the 6, which leaves—which leaves—I think it leaves 3—and then— Peace! Ye banks and braes [begin page 219] o’ bonny DoonⒺexplanatory note but it’s a rare answer and a credit to my patient teaching! Jack StillsonⒺexplanatory note! Yes, sir. Straighten up, and don’t d-r-a-w-l like that—it’s a fatigue to hear ye! And what have you been setting down here: If a horse travel 96 feet in 4 seconds and two-tenths of a second, how much will a barrel of mackerel cost when potatoes are 22 cents a bushel? Answer—eleven dollars and forty-six cents. You incurable ass, don’t you see that ye’ve mixed three questions into one? The gauds and vanities o’ learning! Oh, here’s a hand, my trusty fere, and gie’s a hand o’ thine, and we’llⒺexplanatory note—out of my sight, ye maundering idiot!—”

The show was become unendurable. The boy had forgotten not a word, nor a tone, nor a look, nor a gesture, nor any shade or trifle of detail—he was letter-perfect, and the house could shut its eyes anywhere in the performance and know which individual was being imitated. The boy’s deep gravity and sincerity made the exhibition more and more trying the longer he went on. For a time, in decorous, disciplined and heroic silence, house and teacher sat bursting to laugh, with the tears running down, the regulations requiring noiseless propriety and solemnity; but when the stranger recited the answer to the triple sum and then put his hands together and raised his despairing eyes toward heaven in exact imitation of Mr. Ferguson’s manner, the teacher’s face broke up; and with that concession the house let go with a crash and laughed its fill thenceforth. But the boy went tranquilly on and on, unheeding the screams and throes and explosions, clear to the finish; then made his bow and straightened up and stood, bland and waiting.

It took some time to quiet the school; then Mr. Ferguson said—

“It is the most extraordinary thing I have seen in my life. In this world there is not another talent like yours, lad; be grateful for it, and for the noble modesty with which you bear about such a treasure. How long would you be able to keep in your memory the things which you have been uttering?”

“I cannot forget anything that I see or hear, sir.”

“At all?”

“No, sir.”

“It seems incredible—just impossible. Let me experiment a little [begin page 220] —for the pure joy of it. Take my English-French dictionary and sit down and study it while I go on with the school’s exercises. Shall you be disturbed by us?”

“No, sir.”

He took the dictionary and began to skim the pages swiftly, one after another. Evidently he dwelt upon no page, but merely gave it a lick from top to bottom with his eye and turned it over. The school-work rambled on after a fashion, but it consisted of blunders, mainly, for the fascinated eyes and minds of school and teacher were oftener on the young stranger than elsewhere. At the end of twenty minutes the boy laid the book down. Mr. Ferguson noticed this, and said, with a touch of disappointment in his tone—

“I am sorry. I saw that it did not interest you.”

The boy rose and said—

“Oh, sir, on the contrary!” This in French; then in English, “I have now the words of your language, but the forms not—perhaps, how you call?—the pronunciation also.”

“You have the words? How many of the words do you know?”

“All, sir.”

“No—no—there are 645 octavo pages—you couldn’t have examined a tenth of them in this short time. A page in two seconds?—it is impossible.”

The boy bowed respectfully, and said nothing.

“There—I am in fault again. I shall learn of you—courtesy. Give me the book. Begin. Recite—recite!”

It was another miracle. The boy poured out, in a rushing stream, the words, the definitions, the accompanying illustrative phrases and sentences, the signs indicating the parts of speech—everything; he skipped nothing, he put in all the details, and he even got the pronunciations substantially right, since it was a pronouncing-dictionary. Teacher and school sat in a soundless and motionless spell of awe and admiration, unconscious of the flight of time, unconscious of everything but the beautiful stranger and his stupendous performance. After a long while the juggler interrupted his recitation to say—in rather cumbrous and booky English—

“It is of necessity—what you call ‘of course,’ n’est-ce pas?—that I now am enabled to apply the machinery of the rules of the [begin page 221] grammar, since the meanings of the words which constitute them were become my possession—” Here he stopped, quoted the violated rule, corrected his sentence, then went on: “And it is of course that I now understand the languages—language—appropriated to the lesson of arithmetic—yet not all, the dictionary being in the offensive. As for example, to-wit, ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Sally Fitch hunched me, ye banks and braes o’ bonny Doon, oh here’s a hand my trusty fere and gie’s a hand o’ thine.’ Some of these words are by mischance omitted from the dictionary, and thereby results confusion. Without knowledge of the signification of hunched one is ignorant of the nature of the explanation preferred by the mademoiselle Thatcher; and if one shall not know what a Doon is, and whether it is a financial bank or other that is involved, one is still yet again at a loss.”

Silence. The master roused himself as if from a dream, and lifted his hands and said—

“It is not a parrot—it thinks! Boy, ye are a marvel! With listening an hour and studying half as long, you have learned the English language. You are the only person in America that knows all its words. Let it rest, where it is—the construction will come of itself. Take up the Latin, now, and the Greek, and short-hand writing, and the mathematics. Here are the books. You shall have thirty minutes to each. Then your education will be complete. But tell me! How do you manage these things? What is your method? You do not read the page, you only skim it down with your eye, as one wipes a column of sums from a slate. You understand my English?”

“Yes, master—perfectly. I have no method—meaning I have no mystery. I see what is on the page—that is all.”

“But you see it at a glance.”

“But is not the particulars of the page—” He stopped to apply the rule and correct the sentence: “are not the particulars of the page the same as the particulars of the school? I see all the pupils at once; do I not know, then, how each is dressed, and his attitude and expression, and the color of his eyes and hair, and the length of his nose, and if his shoes are tied or not? Why shall I glance twice?”

Margaret StoverⒺexplanatory note, over in the corner, drew her untied shoe back out of sight.

[begin page 222] “Ah, well, I have seen no one else who could individualize a thousand details with one sweep of the two eyes. Maybe the eyes of the admirable creature the dragon-fly can do it, but that is another matter—he has twelve thousand, and so the haul he makes with his multitudinous glance is a thing within reason and comprehension. Get at your Latin, lad.” Then with a sigh, “We will proceed with our poor dull ploddings.”

The boy took up the book and began to turn the pages, much as if he were carefully counting them. The school glanced with an evil joy at Henry Bascom, and was pleased to note that he was not happy. He was the only Latin pupil in the school, and his pride in this distinction was a thing through which his mates were made to endure much suffering.

The school droned and buzzed along, with the bulk of its mind and its interest not on its work but fixed in envy and discouragement upon the new scholar. At the end of half an hour it saw him lay down his Latin book and take up the Greek; it glanced contentedly at Henry Bascom, and a satisfied murmur dribbled down the benches. In turn the Greek and the mathematics were mastered, then “The New Short-Hand Method, called PhonographyⒺexplanatory note” was taken up. But the phonographic study was short-lived—it lasted but a minute and twenty seconds; then the boy played with several other books. The master noticed this, and by and by said—

“So soon done with the Phonography?”

“It is only a set of compact and simple principles, sir. They are applicable with ease and certainty—like the principles of the mathematics. Also, the examples assist; innumerable combinations of English words are given, and the vowels eliminated. It is admirable, this system, for precision and clarity; one could write Greek and Latin with it, making word-combinations with the vowels excised, and still be understood.”

“Your English is improving by leaps and bounds, my boy.”

“Yes, sir. I have been reading these English books. They have furnished me the forms of the language—the moulds in which it is cast—the idioms.”

“I am past wondering! I think there is no miracle that a mind like [begin page 223] this cannot do. Pray go to the blackboard and let me see what Greek may look like in phonographic word-combinations with the vowel-signs left out. I will read some passages.”

The boy took the chalk, and the trial began. The master read very slowly; then a little faster; then faster still; then as fast as he could. The boy kept up, without apparent difficulty. Then the master threw in Latin sentences, English sentences, French ones, and now and then a hardy problem from Euclid to be ciphered out. The boy was competent, all the while.

“It is amazing, my child, amazing—stupefying! Do me one more miracle, and I strike my flag. Here is a page of columns of figures. Add them up. I have seen the famous lightning-calculator do it in three minutes and a quarter, and I know the answer. I will hold the watch. Beat him!”

The boy glanced at the page, made his bow and said,—

“The total is 4,865,493 if the blurred twenty-third figure in the fifth column is a 9; if it is a 7, the total is less by 2.”

“Right, and he is beaten by incredible odds; but you hadn’t time to even see the blurred figure, let alone note its place. Wait till I find it—the twenty-third, did you say? Here it is, but I can’t tell which it is—it may be a 9, it may be a 7. But no matter, one of your answers is right, according to which name we give the figure. Dear me, can my watch be right? It is long past the noon recess, and everybody has forgotten his dinner. In my thirty years of schoolteaching experience this has not happened before. Truly it is a day of miracles. Children, we dull moles are in no condition to further plod and grub after the excitements and bewilderments of this intellectual conflagration—school is dismissed. My wonderful scholar, tell me your name.”

The school crowded forward in a body to devour the stranger at close quarters with their envying eyes; all except Bascom, who remained apart and sulked.

“Quarante-quatre, sir. Forty-four.”Ⓔexplanatory note

“Why—why—that is only a number, you know, not a name.”

The boy bowed. The master dropped the subject.

“When did you arrive in our town?”

[begin page 224] “Last night, sir.”

“Have you friends or relatives among us?”

“No, sir—none. Mr. Hotchkiss allows me to lodge in his house.”

“You will find the Hotchkisses good people, excellent people. Had you introductions to them?”

“No, sir.”

“You see I am curious; but we are all that, in this monotonous little place, and we mean no harm. How did you make them understand what you wanted?”

“Through my signs and their compassion. It was cold, and I was a stranger.”

“Good—good—and well stated, without waste of words. It describes the Hotchkisses; it’s a whole biography. Whence did you come—and how?”

Forty-four bowed. The master said, affably—

“It was another indiscretion—you will not remember it against—no, I mean you will forget it, in consid—what I am trying to say is, that you will overlook it—that is it, overlook it. I am glad you are come, grateful that you are come.”

“I thank you—thank you deeply, sir.”

“My official character requires that I precede you in leaving this house, therefore I do it. This is an apology. Adieu.”

“Adieu, my master.”

The school made way, and the old gentleman marched out between the ranks with a grave dignity proper to his official state.

The girls went vivaciously chattering away, eager to get home and tell of the wonders they had seen; but outside of the schoolhouse the boys grouped themselves together and waited; silent, expectant, and nervous. They paid but little attention to the bitter weather, they were apparently under the spell of a more absorbing interest. Henry Bascom stood apart from the others, in the [begin page 225] neighborhood of the door. The new boy had not come out, yet. Tom Sawyer had halted him to give him a warning.

“Look out for him—he’ll be waiting. The bully, I mean—Hen Bascom. He’s treacherous and low down.”

“Waiting?”

“Yes—for you.”

“What for?”

“To lick you—whip you.”

“On what account?”

“Why, he’s the bully this year, and you’re a fresh.”

“Is that a reason?”

“Plenty—yes. He’s got to take your measure, and do it to-day—he knows that.”

“It’s a custom, then?”

“Yes. He’s got to fight you, whether he wants to or not. But he wants to. You’ve knocked his Latin layout galley-west.”

“Galley west? Je ne—”

“It’s just a word, you know. Means you’ve knocked his props from under him.”

“Knocked his props from under him?”

“Yes—trumped his ace.”

“Trumped his—”

“Ace. That’s it—pulled his leg.”

“I assure you this is an error. I have not pulled his leg.”

“But you don’t understand. Don’t you see? You’ve graveled him, and he’s disgruntled.”

The new boy’s face expressed his despair. Tom reflected a moment, then his eye lighted with hope, and he said, with confidence—

“Now you’ll get the idea. You see, he held the ageⒺexplanatory note on Latin—just a lone hand, don’t you know, and it made him Grand Turk and Whoopjamboreehoo of the whole school, and he went in procession all by himself, like Parker’s hogⒺexplanatory note. Well, you’ve walked up to the captain’s office with your Latin, now, and pulled in high, low, jack and the game, and it’s taken the curl out of his tail. There—that’s the idea.”

[begin page 226] The new boy hesitated, passed his hand over his forehead, and began, haltingly—

“It is still a little vague. It was but a poor dictionary—that French-English—and over-rich in omissions. Do you perhaps mean that he is jealous?”

“Score one! That’s it. Jealous—the very word. Now then, there’ll be a ring, and you’ll fight. Can you box? do you know the trick of it?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you. You’ll learn in two minutes and less; it don’t begin with grammar for difficulties. Put up your fists—so. Now then, hit me . . . . . You notice how I turned that off with my left? Again . . . . . . See?—turned it with my right. Dance around; caper—like this. Now I’m coming for you—look sharp . . . . . . That’s the ticket—I didn’t arrive. Once more . . . . . . Good! You’re all right. Come on. It’s a cold day for Henry.”

They stepped outside, now. As they walked past Bascom he suddenly thrust out his foot, to trip Forty-four. But the foot was no obstruction, it did not interrupt Forty-four’s stride. Necessarily, then, Bascom was himself tripped. He fell heavily, and everybody laughed privately. He got up, all a-quiver with passion, and cried out—

“Off with your coat, Know-it-all—you’re going to fight or eat dirt, one or t’other. Form a ring, fellows!”

He threw off his coat. The ring was formed.

“May I keep my coat on? Do the rules allow it?”

“Don’t!” said Tom; “it’s a disadvantage. Pull it off.”

“Keep it on, you wax doll, if you want to,” said Henry, “it won’t do you any good either way. Time!”

Forty-four took position, with his fists up, and stood without moving, while the lithe and active Bascom danced about him, danced up toward him, feinted with his right, feinted with his left, danced away again, danced forward again—and so-on and so-on, Tom and others putting in frequent warnings for Forty-four: “Look out for him—look o-u-t!” At last Forty-four opened his guard for an instant, and in that instant Henry plunged, and let drive with all [begin page 227] his force; but Forty-four stepped lightly aside, and Henry’s impulse and a slip on the ice carried him to the ground. He got up lame but eager, and began his dance again; he presently lunged again, hit vacancy and got another fall. After that he respected the slippery ground, and lunged no more, and danced cautiously; he fought with energy, interest and smart judgment, and delivered a sparkling rain of blows, but none of them got home—some were dodged by a sideward tilt of the head, the others were neatly warded. He was getting winded with his violent exercise, but the other boy was still fresh, for he had done no dancing, he had struck no blows, and had had no exercise of consequence. Henry stopped to rest and pant, and Forty-four said—

“Let us not go on with it. What good can come of it?”

The boys murmured dissent; this was an election for Bully; they were personally interested, they had hopes, and their hopes were getting the color of certainties. Henry said—

“You’ll stay where you are, Miss Nancy. You don’t leave this ground till I know who wears the belt.”

“Ah, but you already know—or ought to; therefore, where is the use of going on? You have not struck me, and I have no wish to strike you.”

“Oh, you haven’t, haven’t you? How kind! Keep your benevolences to yourself till somebody asks you for them. Time!”

The new boy began to strike out, now; and every time he struck, Henry went down. Five times. There was great excitement among the boys. They recognised that they were going to lose a tyrant and perhaps get a protector in his place. In their happiness they lost their fears and began to shout—

“Give it him, Forty-four! Let him have it! Land him again! Another one! Give it him good!”

Henry was pluck. He went down time after time, but got patiently up and went at his work again, and did not give up until his strength was all gone. Then he said—

“The belt’s yours—but I’ll get even with you, yet, girly, you see if I don’t.” Then he looked around upon the crowd, and called eight of them by name, ending with Huck Finn, and said: “You’re [begin page 228] spotted, you see. I heard you. To-morrow I’ll begin on you, and I’ll lam the daylights out of you.”

For the first time, a flash of temper showed in the new boy’s eye. It was only a flash; it was gone in a moment; then he said, without passion—

“I will not allow that.”

“You won’t allow it! Who’s asking you? Who cares what you allow and what you don’t allow? To show you how much I care, I’ll begin on them now.”

“I cannot have it. You must not be foolish. I have spared you, till now; I have struck you only lightly. If you touch one of the boys, I will hit you hard.”

But Henry’s temper was beyond his control. He jumped at the nearest boy on his black-list, but he did not reach him; he went down under a sounding slap from the flat of the new boy’s hand, and lay motionless where he fell.

“I saw it! I saw that!” This shout was from Henry’s father, the nigger-traderⒺexplanatory note—an unloved man, but respected for his muscle and his temper. He came running from his sleigh, with his whip in his hand and raised to strike. The boys fell back out of his way, and as he reached Forty-four he brought down the whip with an angry “I’ll learn you!” Forty-four dodged deftly out of its course and seized the trader’s wrist with his right hand. There was a sound of crackling bones and a groan, and the trader staggered away, saying—

“Name of God, my wrist is crushed!”

Henry’s mamma arrived from the sleigh, now and broke into frenzies of lamentation over her collapsed son and her crippled husband, while the schoolboys looked on, dazed, and rather frightened at the woman’s spectacular distress, but fascinated with the show and glad to be there and see it. It absorbed their attention so entirely that when Mrs. Bascom presently turned and demanded the extradition of Forty-four so that she might square accounts with him they found that he had disappeared without their having noticed it.

Within an hour afterward people began to drop in at the Hotchkiss house; ostensibly to make a friendly call, really to get sight of the miraculous boy. The news they brought soon made the HotchkissesⒺexplanatory note proud of their prize and glad that they had caught him. Mr. Hotchkiss’s pride and joy were frank and simple; every new marvel that any comer added to the list of his lodger’s great deeds made him a prouder and happier man than he was before, he being a person substantially without jealousies and by nature addicted to admirations. Indeed he was a broad man in many ways; hospitable to new facts and always seeking them; to new ideas, and always examining them; to new opinions and always adopting them; a man ready to meet any novelty half way and give it a friendly trial. He changed his principles with the moon, his politics with the weather, and his religion with his shirt. He was recognized as being limitlessly good-hearted, quite fairly above the village average intellectually, a diligent and enthusiastic seeker after truth, and a sincere believer in his newest belief, but a man who had missed his vocation—he should have been a weather-vane. He was tall and handsome and courteous, with winning ways, and expressive eyes, and had a white head which looked twenty years older than the rest of him.

His good Presbyterian wife was as steady as an anvil. She was not a creature of change. When she gave shelter to an opinion she did not make a transient guest of it, but a permanency. She was fond and proud of her husband, and believed he would have been great if he had had a proper chance—if he had lived in a metropolis, instead of a village; if his merits had been exposed to the world instead of being hidden under a bushel. She was patient with his excursions after the truth. She expected him to be saved—thought she knew that that would happen, in fact. It could only be as a [begin page 230] Presbyterian, of course, but that would come—come of a certainty. All the signs indicated it. He had often been a Presbyterian; he was periodically a Presbyterian, and she had noticed with comfort that his period was almost astronomically regular. She could take the almanac and calculate its return with nearly as much confidence as other astronomers calculated an eclipse. His Mohammedan period, his Methodist period, his Buddhist period, his Baptist period, his Parsi period, his Roman Catholic period, his Atheistic period—these were all similarly regular, but she cared nothing for that. She knew there was a patient and compassionate Providence watching over him that would see to it that he died in his Presbyterian period. The latest thing in religions was the Fox-girl Rochester rappingsⒺexplanatory note; so he was a Spiritualist for the present.

Hannah Hotchkiss exulted in the wonders brought by the visitors, and the more they brought the happier she was in the possession of that boy; but she was very human in her make-up, and she felt a little aggravated over the fact that the news had to come from the outside; that these people should know these things about her lodger before she knew them herself; that she must sit and do the wondering and exclaiming when in all fairness she ought to be doing the telling and they the applauding; that they should be able to contribute all the marvels and she none. Finally the widow DawsonⒺexplanatory note remarked upon the circumstance that all the information was being furnished from the one side; and added—

“Didn’t he do anything out of the common here, sister* Hotchkiss—last night or this morning?”

Hannah was ashamed of her poverty. The only thing she was able to offer was colorless compared with the matters which she had been listening to.

“Well, no—I can’t say that he did; unless you consider that we couldn’t understand his language but did understand his signs about as easy as if they had been talk. We were astonished at it, and spoke of it afterwards.”

Her young niece, Annie Fleming, spoke up and said—

---

* “Sister” in the Methodist, or Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Campbellite church—nothing more. A common form, in those daysⒶemendation. [begin page 231]

“Why, auntie, that wasn’t all. The dog doesn’t allow a stranger to come to the door at night, but he didn’t bark at the boy; he acted as if he was ever so glad to see him. You said, yourself, that that never happened with a stranger before.”

“It’s true, as sure as I live; it had passed out of my mind, child.”

She was happier, now. Then her husband made a contribution—

“I call to mind, now, that just as we stepped into his room to show him its arrangements I knocked my elbow against the ward-robe and the candle fell and went out, and—”

“Certainly!” exclaimed Hannah, “and the next moment he had struck a match and was lighting—”

“Not the stub I had dropped,” cried Hotchkiss, “but a whole candle! Now the marvel is that there was only one whole candle in the room—”

“And it was clear on the other side of the room,” interrupted Hannah, “and moreover only just the end of it was showing, where it lay on the top of the bookcase, and he had noticed it with that lightning eye of his—”

“Of course, of course!” exclaimed the company, with admiration.

“—and gone right to it in the dark without disturbing a chair. Why, sister Dawson, a cat couldn’t have done it any quicker or better or surer! Just think of it!”

A chorus of rewarding astonishment broke out which made Hannah’s whole constitution throb with pleasure; and when sister Dawson laid her hand impressively upon Hannah’s hand, and then walled her eyes toward the ceiling, as much as to say, “it’s beyond words, beyond words!” the pleasure rose to ecstasy.

“Wait!” said Mr. Hotchkiss, breaking out with the kind of laugh which in the back settlements gives notice that something humorous is coming, “I can tell you a wonder that beats that to pieces—beats anything and everything that has been told about him up to date. He paid four weeks’ board in advance—cash down! Petersburg can believe the rest, but you’ll never catch it taking that statement at par.”

The joke had immense success; the laugh was hearty all around. Then Hotchkiss issued another notifying laugh, and added—

[begin page 232] “And there’s another wonder on top of that; I tell you a little at a time, so as not to overstrain you. He didn’t pay in wildcat at twenty-five discount, but in a currency you’ve forgotten the look of—minted gold! Four yellow eagle-birds—and here they are, if you don’t believe me.”

This was too grand and fine to be humorous; it was impressive, almost awe-inspiring. The gold pieces were passed from hand to hand and contemplated in mute reverence. Aunt Rachel, elderly slave woman, was passing cracked nuts and cider. She offered a contribution, now.

“Now, den, dat ’splain it! I uz a wonderin’ ’bout dat cannel. You is right, Miss Hannah, dey uz only one in de room, en she uz on top er de bookcase. Well, she dah yit—she hain’t been tetched.”

“Not been touched?”

“No, m’am; she hain’t been tetched. A ornery po’ yaller taller cannel, ain’t she?”

“Of course.”

“Yes’m. I mould’ dat cannel myself. Kin we ’ford wax cannels—half a dollar a pound?”

“Wax! The idea!”

“Dat new cannel’s wax!”

“Oh, come!”

“Fo’ Gawd she is. White as Miss Guthrie’s store-teeth.”

A delicate flattery-shot, neatly put. The widow GuthrieⒺexplanatory note, 56 and dressed for 25, was pleased, and exhibited a girlish embarrassment that was very pretty. She was excusably vain of her false teeth, the only ones in the town; a costly luxury, and a fine and showy contrast with the prevailing mouth-equipment of both old and young—the kind of sharp contrast which white-washed palings make with a charred stump-fence.

Everybody wanted to see the wax candle; Annie Fleming was hurried away to fetch it, and aunt Rachel resumed—

“Miss Hannah, dey’s sump’n pow’ful odd ’bout our young gentman. In de fust place, he ain’t got no baggage. Ain’t dat so?”

“It hasn’t come yet, but I reckon it’s coming. I’ve been expecting it all day, of course.”

[begin page 233] “Well, don’t you give yourself no mo’ trouble ’bout it, honey. In my opinion he ain’t got no baggage, en none ain’t a-coming.”

“What makes you think that, Rachel?”

“Caze he ain’t got no use for it, Miss Hannah.”

“Why?”

“I’s gwyne tell you. Warn’t he dress’ beautiful when he come?”

“Yes.” Then she added—to the company: “Plain, but of finer materials than anybody here is used to. Nicely made, too, and spick and span new.”

“You’s got it down ’cording to de facts. Now den, I went to his room dis mawnin to fetch his clo’es so Jeff could bresh ’em en black his boots, en dey warn’t no clo’es dah. Nary a rag. En no boots en no socks, nuther. He uz soun’ asleep, en I search de place all over. Tuck his breakfus after you-all uz done—didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Prim en slick en combed up nice as a cat, warn’t he?”

“Yes. I think so. I had only a glimpse of him.”

“Well, he was; en dey ain’t no comb ner bresh ner nothing in dat room. How you reckon he done it?”

“I don’t know.”

“En I don’t. But dem is de facts. Did you notice his clo’es, honey?”

“No. Only that they were neat and handsome.”

“Now den, I did. Dey warn’t de same dat he come in.”

“Why, Rachel—”

“Nemmine, I knows what I’s a talkin’ ’bout. Dey warn’t de same. Every rag of ’em jist a little diffunt; not much, but diffunt. His overcoat uz on a cheer by him, en it uz entirely diffunt. Las’ night it uz long en brown, dis mawnin’ it uz short en blue; en dah he sot, wid shoes on, not boots—I swah to it!”

The explosions of astonishment that followed this charmed Mrs. Hotchkiss’s ear; the family’s shares in the wonder-market were accumulating satisfactorily.

“Now, den, Miss Hannah, dat ain’t all. I fotch him some mo’ batter-cakes, en whilst I uz a butterin’ ’em for him I happens to look around, en dah uz ole Sanctified Sal, as Marse Oliver calls her, a [begin page 234] loafin’ along in, perfeckly comfortable. When I see dat, I says to myself, By jimminy dey’s bewitchment here som’ers, en it’s time for me to light out, en I done it. En I tole Jeff, en he didn’t b’lieve me, so me en him slip back en peep, for to see what uz gwyne to happen. En Jeff uz a sayin’ ‘She’ll tah de livers en lights outer him, dat’s what she’ll do; she ain’t friendly to no stranger any time, en now she’s got kittens, she won’t stan’ ’em nohow.’ ”

“Rachel, it was shame of you to leave her there; you knew perfectly well what could happen.”

“I knowed it warn’t right, Miss Hannah, but I couldn’t he’p it, I uz scairt to see de cat so ca’m. But don’t you worry, honey. You ’member ’bout de dog? De dog didn’t fly at him, de dog uz glad to see him. Jist de same wid de cat. Me en Jeff seen it. She jump’ up in his lap, en he stroke her, en she uz happy, en raise her back up en down comfortable, en wave her tail, en scrape her head along under his chin, en den jump on de table en set down, en den dey talk together.”

“Talk together!”

“Yes’m. I wisht I may die if it ain’t so.”

“The foreign talk that he began with, last night?”

“No’m. Cat-talk.”

“Nonsense!”

“Shore’s you born. Cat-talk. Bofe of ’em talked cat-talk—sof’ en petting—jist like a ole cat en a young cat—cats dat’s relations. Well, she tuck a chance at de vittles, en didn’t like ’em, so den he tuck truck outer his pocket en fed it to her—en you bet you she didn’t go back on dat! No’m—’deed she didn’t. She laid into it like she hain’t had nothin’ to eat for four years. He tuck it all outer de same pocket. Now, den, Miss Hannah, I reckon you knows how much Sanctified Sal kin hold? Well, he loaded her chock up to de chin—yes’m, till her eyes fairly bug out. She couldn’t wag her tail she’s so full. Look like she’d swallered a watermillion she uz dat crammed. Tuck it all outer dat one pocket. Now, den, Miss Hannah, dey ain’t no pocket, en dey ain’t no saddle-bags dat kin hold enough to load up Sanctified Sal, en you knows it. Well, he tuck it all outer de one pocket—I swah to it.”

[begin page 235] Everybody was impressed; there was a crackling fire of ejaculations; sister Dawson walled her eyes again, and Dr. WheelrightⒺexplanatory note, that imposing oracle, nodded his head slowly up and down, as one who could deliver a weighty thought an’ he would.

“Well, a mouse come a-running, en run up his leg en into his bosom, en Sanctified Sal was nodding, but she seen it en forgot she uz loaded, en made a jump for it en fell off the table, en laid there on her back a-waving her hands in the air, en waved a couple of times or so en went to sleep jist so—couldn’t keep her eyes open. Den he loaded up de mouse—outer dat same pocket; en put his head down en dey talked mouse-talk together.”

“Oh, stop—your imagination’s running away with you.”

“Fo’ Gawd it’s true. Me en Jeff heard ’em. Den he put de mouse down en started off, en de mouse was bound she’d foller him; so he put her in de cubberd en shet de do’; den he cler’d out de back way.”

“How does it come you didn’t tell us these things sooner, Rachel?”

“Me tell you! Hm! You reckon you’d a b’lieved me? You reckon you’d a b’lieved Jeff? We b’lieves in bewitchments, caze we knows dey’s so; but you-all only jist laughs at ’em. Does you reckon you’d a b’lieved me, Miss Hannah?—does you?”

“Well—no.”

“Den you’d a laughed at me. Does a po’ nigger want to git laughed at any mo’ d’n white folks? No, Miss Hannah, dey don’t. We’s got our feelinsⒶemendation, same as you-all, alldough we’s ign’ant en black.”

Her tongue was hung in the middle and was easier to start than to stop. It would have gone on wagging, now, but that the wax candle had long ago been waiting for exhibition. Annie Fleming sat with it in her hand, with one ear drinking in aunt Rachel’s fairytales, and the other one listening for the click of the gate-latch; for she had lost her tender little inexperienced heart to the new boy without suspecting it; awake and asleep she had been dreaming of his beautiful face ever since she had had her first glimpse of it and she was longing to see it again and feel that enchanting and [begin page 236] mysterious ecstasy which it had inspired in her before. She was a dear and sweet and pretty and guileless creature, she was just turned eighteen, she did not know she was in love, she only knew that she worshiped—worshiped as the fire-worshipers worship the sun, content to see his face and feel his warmth, unworthy of a nearer intimacy, unequal to it, unfitted for it, and not requiring it or aspiring to it. Why didn’t he come? Why had he not come to dinner? The hours were so slow, the day so tedious; the longest she had known in her eighteen years. All were growing more and more impatient for his coming, but their impatience was pale beside hers; and besides, they could express it, and did, but she could not have that relief, she must hide her secret, she must put on the lie of indifference and act it the best she could.

The candle was passed from hand to hand, now, and its material admired and verified; then Annie carried it away.

It was well past mid-afternoon, and the days were short. Annie and her aunt were to sup and spend the night with sister Guthrie on the hill, a good mile distant. What should be done? Was it worth while to wait longer for the boy? The company were reluctant to go without seeing him; sister Guthrie hoped she might have the distinction of his presence in her house with the niece and the aunt, and would like to wait a little longer and invite him; so it was agreed to hold on a while.

Annie returned, now, and there was disappointment in her face and a pain at her heart, though no one detected the one nor suspected the other. She said—

“Aunty, he has been here, and is gone again.”

“Then he must have come the back way. It’s too bad. But are you sure? How do you know?”

“Because he has changed his clothes.”

“Are there clothes there?”

“Yes; and not the ones he had this morning, nor the ones he wore last night.”

“Dah, now, what I tell you? En dat baggage not come yit!”

“Can we see them?”

“Can’t we see them?”

[begin page 237] “Do let us go and look at them!”

Everybody wanted to see the clothes, everybody begged. So, sentries were posted to look out for the boy’s approach and give notice—Annie to watch the front door and Rachel the back one— and the rest went up to Forty-four’s chamber. The clothes were there, new and handsome. The coat lay spread upon the bed. Mrs. Hotchkiss took it by the skirts and held it up to display it—a flood of gold and silver coin began to pour out of the inverted pockets; the woman stood aghast and helpless; the coin piled higher and higher on the floor—

“Put it down!” shouted her husband; “drop it, can’t you!” But she was paralysed; he snatched the coat and threw it on the bed, and the flood ceased. “Now we are in a fine fix; he can come at any moment and catch us; and we’ll have to explain, if we can, how we happen to be here. Quick, all you accessories after the fact and before it—turn to; we must gather it up and put it back.”

So all those chief citizens got down on their hands and knees and scrambled all around and everywhere for the coins, raking under the bed and the sofa and the wardrobe for estrays, a most undignified spectacle. The work was presently finished, but that did not restore happiness, for there was a new trouble, now: after the coat’s pockets had been stuffed there was still half a peck of coin left. It was a shameful predicament. Nobody could get command of his wits for a moment or two; then sister Dawson made a suggestion—

“No real harm is done, when you come to look at it. It is natural that we should have some curiosity about the belongings of such a wonderful stranger, and if we try to satisfy it, not meaning any harm or disrespect—”

“Right,” interrupted Miss PomeroyⒺexplanatory note, the schoolm’amⒶemendation; “he’s only a boy, and he wouldn’t mind, and he wouldn’t think it anything odd if people as old as we are should take a little liberty which he mightn’t like in younger folks.”

“And besides,” said Judge TaylorⒺexplanatory note the magistrate, “he hasn’t suffered any loss, and isn’t going to suffer any. Let us put the whole of the money in his table drawer and close it, and lock the room door; and when he comes we will all tell him just how it was, and [begin page 238] apologise. It will come out all right; I think we don’t need to worry.”

It was agreed that this was probably as good a plan as could be contrived in the difficult circumstances of the case; so the company took all the comfort from it they could, and were glad to get out of the place and clear for their homes without waiting longer for the boy, in case he shouldn’t arrive before they got their wraps on. They said Hotchkiss could do the explaining and apologising, and depend upon them to indorse and stand by all his statements.

“And besides,” said Mrs. Wheelright, “how do we know it is real money? He may be a juggler out of India; in that case the drawer is empty, or full of sawdust by this time.”

“I am afraid it’s not going to happen,” said Hotchkiss; “the money was rather heavy for sawdust. The thing that mainly interests me is, that I shan’t sleep very well with that pile of money in the house—I shan’t sleep at all if you people are going to tell about it, and so I’ll ask you to keep the secret until morning; then I will make the boy send it to the bank, and you may talk as freely as you please, then.”

Annie put on her things and she and her aunt departed with the rest. Darkness was approaching; the lodger was not come. What could the matter be? Mrs. Hotchkiss said he was probably coasting with his schoolmates and paying no attention to more important things—boy-like. Rachel was told to keep his supper warm and let him take his own time about coming for it; “boys will be boys, and late by nature, nights and mornings; let them be boys while they can, it’s the best of life and the shortest.”

It had turned warm, and clouds were gathering fast, with a promise of snow—a promise which would be kept. AsⒶemendation Doctor Wheelright, the stately old First-Family Virginian and imposing Thinker of the village was going out at the front door, he unloaded a Thought. It seemed to weigh a good part of a ton, and it impressed everybody—

“It is my opinion—after much and careful reflection, sir—that the indications warrant the conjecture that in several ways this youth is an extraordinary person.”

[begin page 239] That verdict would go around. After such an endorsement, from such a source, the village would think twice before it ventured to think small potatoes of that boy.

As the darkness closed down an hour later, what is to this day called the Great Storm began. It was in reality a Blizzard, but that expressive word had not then been inventedⒺexplanatory note. It was this storm’s mission to bury the farms and villages of a long narrow strip of country for ten days, and do it as compactly and as thoroughly as the mud and ashes had buried Pompeii nearly eighteen centuries before. The Great Storm began its work modestly, deceptively. It made no display, there was no wind and no noise; whoever was abroad and crossed the lamp-glares flung from uncurtained windows noticed that the snow came straight down, and that it laid its delicate white carpet softly, smoothly, artistically, thickening the substance swiftly and equably; the passenger noticed also that this snow was of an unusual sort, it not coming in an airy cloud of great feathery flakes, but in a fog of white dust-forms—mere powder; just powder; the strangest snow imaginable. By 8 in the evening this snow-fog had become so dense that lamp-glares four steps away were not visible, and without the help of artificial light a passenger could see no object till he was near enough to touch it with his hand. Whosoever was abroad now was practically doomed, unless he could soon stumble upon somebody’s house. Orientation was impossible; to be abroad was to be lost. A man could not leave his own door, walk ten steps and find his way back again.

The wind rose, now, and began to sing through this ghastly fog; momently it rose higher and higher, soon its singing had developed into roaring, howling, shrieking. It gathered up the snow from the ground and drove it in massy walls ahead of it and distributed it here and there across streets and open lots and against houses, in drifts fifteen feet deep.

[begin page 240] There were disasters now, of course. Very few people were still out, but those few were necessarily in bad case. If they faced the wind, it caked their faces instantly with a thick mask of powder which closed their eyes in blindness and stopped their nostrils and their breath, and they fell where they were; if they tried to move with the wind they soon plunged into a drift and the on-coming wall of snow buried them. Even in that little village twenty-eight persons perished that night, some because they had heard cries of distress and went out to help, but got lost within sixty seconds, and then, seeking their own doors, went in the wrong direction and found their graves in five minutes.

At 8, just as the wind began to softly moan and whimper and wheeze, Mr. Hotchkiss laid his spiritualistic book down, snuffed the candle, threw an extra log on the fire, then parted his coat tails and stood with his back to the blaze and began to turn over in his mind some of the information which he had been gathering about the manners and customs and industries of the spirit land, and to repeat and try to admire some of the poetry which Byron had sent thence through the rapping-mediums. He did not know that there was a storm outside. He had been absorbed in his book for an hour and a half. Aunt Rachel appeared, now, with an armful of wood, which she flung in the box and said—

“Well, seh, it’s de wust I ever see; and Jeff say de same.”

“Worst what?”

“Storm, seh.”

“Is there a storm?”

“My! didn’t you know it, seh?”

“No.”

“Why, it’s de beatenes’ storm—tain’t like nothin’ you ever see, Marse Oliver—so fine—like ashes a-blowin’; why, you can’t see no distance scasely. Me en Jeff was at de prar meetin’, en come back a little bit ago, en come mighty near miss’n de house; en when we look out, jist dis minute it’s a heap wuss’n ever. Jeff he uz a sayin’—” She glanced around; an expression of fright came into her face and she exclaimed, “Why, I reckoned of cose he uz here—en he ain’t!”

[begin page 241] “Who?”

“Young Marse Fawty-fo’.”

“Oh, he’s playing somewhere; he’ll be along presently.”

“You hain’t seen him, seh?”

“No.”

“O, my Gawd!”

She fled away, and in five minutes was back again, sobbing and panting.

“He ain’t in his room, his supper ain’t tetched, he ain’t anywhers; I been all over de house. O, Marse Oliver de chile’s lost, we ain’t never gwyne to see him no mo’.”

“Oh, nonsense, you needn’t be afraid—boys don’t mind a storm.”

Uncle Jeff arrived at this moment, and said—

“But Marse Oliver dis ain’t no common storm—has you been to look at it?”

“No.”

Hotchkiss was alarmed, at last, and ran with the others to the front door and snatched it open. The wind piped a high note, and they disappeared in a world of snow which was discharged at them as if from steam-shovels.

“Shut it, shut it!” gasped the master. It was done. A blast of wind came,Ⓐemendation that rocked the house. There was a faint and choking cry outside. Hotchkiss blenched, and said, “What can we do? It’s death to go out there. But we must do something—it may be the boy.”

“Wait, Marse Oliver, I’ll fetch a clo’es line, en Jeff he—” She was gone, and in a moment brought it and began to tie an end around uncle Jeff’s waist. “Now, den, out wid you! me en Marse Oliver ’llⒶemendation hole on to de yuther end.”

Jeff was ready; the door was opened for the plunge, and the plunge was made; but in the same instant a suffocating assault of snow closed the eyes and took away the breath of the master and Rachel and they sank gasping to the floor and the line escaped from their hands. They threw themselves on their faces, with their feet toward the door; their breath returned, and Rachel moaned, “He’s gone, now!” By the light from the hall lamp over the door she caught a dim vision of the new boy, coming from toward the dining [begin page 242] room, and said “Thank de good Gawd for dat much—how ever did he find de back gate?”

The boy came through against the wind and shut the front door. The master and Rachel rose out of their smother of snow, and the former saidⒶemendation—

“I’m so grateful! I never expected to see you again.”

By this time Rachel’s sobs and groans and lamentations were rising above the clamors of the storm, and the boy asked what the trouble was. Hotchkiss told him about Jeff.

“I will go and fetch him, sir. Get into the parlor, and close the door.”

“You will venture out? Not a step—stay where you are! I wouldn’t allow—”

The boy interrupted—not with words, but only a look—and the man and the servant passed into the parlor and closed the door. Then they heard the front door close, and stood looking at each other. The storm raged on; every now and then a gust of wind burst against the house with a force which made it quake, and in the intervals it wailed like a lost soul; the listeners tallied the gusts and the intervals, losing heart all the time, and when they had counted five of each, their hopes died.

Then they opened the parlor door—to do they didn’t know what—the street door sprang open at the same moment, and two snow-figures entered: the boy carrying the unconscious old negro man in his arms. He delivered his burden to Rachel, shut the door, and said—

“A man has found refuge in the open shed over yonder; a slender, tall, wild-looking man with thin sandy beard. He is groaning. It is not much of a shelter, that shed.”

He said it indifferently, and Hotchkiss shuddered.

“Oh, it is awful, awful!” he said, “he will die.”

“Why is it awful?” asked the boy.

“Why? It—it—why of course it’s awful!”

“Perhaps it is as you say; I do not know. Shall I fetch him?”

“Great guns, no! Don’t dream of such a thing—one miracle of the sort is enough.”

[begin page 243] “But if you want him— Do you want him?”

“Want him? I—why, I don’t want him—that isn’t it—I mean, why, don’t you understand?—it’s a pity he should die, poor fellow; but we are not in a position to—”

“I will fetch him.”

“Stop, stop, are you mad!—come back!”

But the boy was gone.

“Rachel, why the devil did you let him get out? Can’t you see that the lad’s a rank lunatic?”

“O, Marse Oliver, gim it to me, I deserve it! I’s so thankful to git my ole Jeff back I ain’t got no sense en can’t take notice of nothin’. I’s so shamed, en O, my Gawd, I—”

“We had him, and now we’ve lost him again; and this time for good; and it’s all your fault, for being a—”

The door fell open, a snow image plunged in upon the floor, the boy’s voice called, “There he is—there’s others, yet,” and the door closed again.

“Oh, well,” cried Hotchkiss with a note of despair, “we’ve got to give him up, there’s no saving him. Rachel!” He was flapping the snow from the new take, with a “tidy.” “Bless my soul, it’s Crazy MeadowsⒺexplanatory note! Rouse up, Jeff! lend a hand, both of you—drag him to my fire.” It was done. “Now, then, blankets, food, hot water, whisky—fly around! we’ll save him, he isn’t more than half dead, yet.”

The three worked over Crazy Meadows half an hour, and brought him around. Meantime they had kept alert ears open, listening; but their listening was unblessed, no sounds came but the rumbling and blustering of the storm. Crazy Meadows gazed around confusedly, gradually got his bearings, recognized the faces, and said—

“I am saved! Hotchkiss, it seems impossible. How did it happen?”

“A boy did it—the most marvelous boy on the planet. It was lucky you had a lantern.”

“Lantern? I hadn’t any lantern.”

“Yes, you had. You don’t know. The boy described your build and beard.”

[begin page 244] “I hadn’t any lantern, I tell you. There wasn’t any light around.”

“Marse Oliver,” said Rachel, “didn’t Miss Hannah say de young marster kin see in de dark?”

“Why, certainly—now that you mention it. But how could he see through that blanket of snow? My gracious, I wish he would come! Oh, but he’ll never come, poor young chap, he’ll never come—never any more.”

“Marse Oliver, don’t you worry, de good Lawd kin take care of him.”

“In this storm, you old idiot? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Wait—I’ve got an idea! Quick—get around the table; now then, take hold of hands. Banish all obstructive influences—you want to be particular about that; the spirits can’t do anything against doubt and incredulity. Silence, now, and concentrate your minds. Poor boy, if he is dead he will come and say so.”

He glanced up, and perceived that there was a hiatus in the circle; Crazy Meadows said, without breach of slave-State politeness, and without offence to the slaves present, since they had been accustomed to the franknesses of slave-State etiquette all their lives—

“I’ll go any reasonable length to prove my solicitude for the fate of my benefactor, for I am not an ungrateful man, and not a soured one, either, if the children do chase me and stone me for the fun they get out of it; but I’ve got to draw the line. I’m willing to sit at a table with niggers for just this once, for your sake, Oliver Hotchkiss, but that is as far as I can go—I’ll get you to excuse me from taking them by the hand.”

The gratitude of the two negroes was deep and honest; this speech promised relief for them; their situation had been a cruelly embarrassing one; they had sat down with these white men because they had been ordered to do it, and it was habit and heredity to obey, but their seats had not been more comfortable than a hot stove would have been. They hoped and expected that their master would be reasonable and rational, now, and send them away, but it didn’t happen. He could manage his seance without Meadows, and would do it. He didn’t mind holding hands with negroes, for he was a sincere and enthusiastic abolitionist; in fact had been [begin page 245] an abolitionist for five weeks, now, and if nothing happened would be one for a fortnight longer. He had confirmed the sincerity of his new convictions in the very beginning by setting the two slaves free—a generosity which had failed only because they didn’t belong to him but to his wife. As she had never been an abolitionist it was impossible that she could ever become one.

By command the slaves joined hands with their master and sat trembling and silent, for they were miserably afraid of spectres and spirits. Hotchkiss bowed his head solemnly to the table, and said in a reverent tone:

“Are there any spirits present? If so, please rap three times.”

After a pause the response came—three faint raps. The negroes shrunk together till their clothes were loose upon their bodies, and begged pathetically to be released.

“Sit still! and don’t let your hands shake like that.”

It was Lord Byron’s spirit. Byron was the most active poet on the other side of the grave in those days, and the hardest one for a medium to get rid of. He reeled off several rods of poetry now, of his usual spiritual pattern—rhymy and jingly and all that, but not good, for his mind had decayed since he died. At the end of three-quarters of an hour he went away to hunt for a word that would rhyme with silver—good luck and a long riddance, Crazy Meadows said, for there wasn’t any such word. Then Napoleon came and explained Waterloo all over again and how it wasn’t his fault—a thing which he was always doing in the St. Helena days, and latterly around the festive rapping-table. Crazy Meadows scoffed at him, and said he didn’t even get the dates right, let alone the facts; and he laughed his wild mad laugh—a reedy and raspy and horrid explosion which had long been a fright to the village and its dogs, and had brought him many a volley of stones from the children.

Shakspeare arrived and did some rather poor things, and was followed by a throng of Roman statesmen and generals whose English was the only remarkable thing about their contributions; then at last, about eleven o’clock, came some thundering raps which made the table and the company jump.

“Who is it, please?”

[begin page 246] “Forty-four!”

“Ah, how sad!—we are deeply grieved, but of course we feared it and expected it. Are you happy?”

“Happy? Certainly.”

“We are so glad! It is the greatest comfort to us. Where are you?”

“In hell!”

“O, de good Lawd!—please, Marse Oliver, lemme go, oh, please lemme go—oh, Marse Oliver, me en Rachel can’t stan’ it!”

“Hold still, you fool!”

“Oh, please, please, Marse Oliver!”

“Will you keep still, you puddnhead! Ah, now, if we can only persuade him to materialize! I’ve never seen one yet. Forty-four, dear lost lad, would you mind appearing to us?”

“Oh, don’t, Marse Oliver!—please, don’t!”

“Shut up! Do materialize! Do appear to us, if only for a moment!”

Presto! There sat the boy, in their midst! The negroes shrieked, and went over on their backs on the floor and continued to shriek. Crazy Meadows fell over backwards, too, but gathered himself up in silence and stood apart with heaving breast and flaming eyes, staring at the boy. Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together in gratitude and delight, and his face was transfigured with the glory-light of triumph.

“Now let the doubter doubt and the scoffer scoff if they want to—but they’ve had their day! Ah, Forty-four, dear Forty-four, you’ve done our cause a noble service.”

“What cause?”

“Spiritualism. Stop that screeching and screaming, will you!”

The boy stooped and touched the negroes, and said—

“There—go to sleep. Now go to bed. In the morning you will think it was a dream.” They got up and wandered somnambulistically away. He turned and looked at Crazy Meadows, whose lids at once sank down and hid his wild eyes. “Go and sleep in my bed; in the morning it will be a dream to you, too.” Meadows drifted away like one in a trance, and followed after the vanished negroes. “What is spiritualism, sir?”

[begin page 247] Hotchkiss eagerly explained. The boy smiled, made no comment, and changed the subject.

“Twenty-eight have perished in your village by the storm.”

“Heavens! Can that be true?”

“I saw them; they are under the snow—scattered over the town.”

“Saw them?”

The boy took no notice of the inquiry in the emphasised word.

“Yes—twenty-eight.”

“What a misfortune!”

“Is it?”

“Why—how can you ask?”

“I don’t know. I could have saved them if I had known it was desirable. After you wanted that man saved I gathered the idea that it was desirable, so I searched the town and saved the rest that were straggling—thirteen.”

“How noble! And how beautiful it was to die in such a work. Oh, sainted spirit, I worship your memory!”

“Whose memory?”

“Yours; and I—”

“Do you take me for dead?”

“Dead? Of course. Aren’t you?”

“Certainly not.”

Hotchkiss’s joy was without limit or measure. He poured it eloquently out until he was breathless; then paused, and added pathetically—

“It is bad for spiritualism—yes, bad, bad—but let it go—go and welcome, God knows I’m glad to have you back, even on those costly terms! And by George, we’ll celebrate! I’m a teetotaler—been a teetotaler for years—months, anyway—a month—but at a time like this—”

The kettle was still on the fire, the bottle which had revived Meadows was still at hand, and in a couple of minutes he had brewed a pair of good punches—“anyway, good enough for a person out of practice,” he said.

The boy began to sip, and said it was pleasant, and asked what it was.

[begin page 248] “Why, bless your heart, whisky of course—can’t you tell by the smell of it? And we’ll have a smoke, too. I don’t smoke—haven’t for years—I think it’s years—because I’m president of the Anti-Smoking League—but at a time like this—” He jumped up and threw a log on the fire, punched the pile into a roaring blaze, then filled a couple of cob pipes and brought them. “There, now, ain’t it cosy, ain’t it comfortable?—and just hear the storm! My, but she’s booming! But snug here?—it’s no name for it!”

The boy was inspecting his pipe with interest.

“What shall I do with it, sir?”

“Do with it? Do you mean to say you don’t smoke? I never saw such a boy. Next you’ll say you don’t break the Sabbath.”

“But what is the material?”

“That? Tobacco—of course.”

“Oh, I see. Sir Walter Raleigh discovered it among the Indians; I read about it in the school. Yes, I understand now.”

He applied the candle and began to smoke, Hotchkiss gazing at him puzzled.

“You’ve read about it! Upon my word! Now that I come to think about it, you don’t seem to know anything except what you’ve read about in that school. Why how in the world could you be born and raised in the State of Missouri and never—”

“But I wasn’t. I am a foreigner.”

“You don’t say!—and speak just like an educated native—not even an accent. Where were you raised?”

The boy answered naïvely—

“Partly in heaven, partly in hell.”

Hotchkiss’s glass fell from one hand, his pipe from the other, and he sat staring stupidly at the boy, and breathing short. Presently he murmured dubiously—

“I reckon the punch—out of practice, you know—maybe both of us—and—” He paused, and continued to gaze and blink; then shook his thoughts together and said, “Can’t tell anything about it—it is too undeveloped for me; but it’s all right, we’ll make a night of it. It’s my opinion, speaking as a prohibitionist—” He stooped and picked up his glass and his pipe, and went rambling on in a [begin page 249] broken and incoherent way while he filled them, glancing furtively at the boy now and then out of the corner of his eye and trying to settle his disturbed and startled mind and get his bearings again. But the boy was not disturbed; he smoked and sipped in peace, and quiet, and manifest contentment. He took a book out of his pocket, and began to turn the pages swiftly; Hotchkiss sat down, stirring his new punch, and keeping a wistful and uneasy eye upon him. After a minute or two the book was laid upon the table.

“Now I know all about it,” said the boy. “It is all here—tobacco, and liquors, and such things. Champagne is placed at the head of everything; and Cuban tobacco at the head of the tobaccos.”

“Oh, yes, they are the gems of the planet in those lines. Why—I don’t recognise this book; did you bring it in to-night?”

“Yes.”

“Where from?”

“The British Museum.”

Hotchkiss began to blink again, and look uneasy.

“It is a new work,” added the boy. “Published yesterday.”

The blinking continued. Hotchkiss started to take a sip of punch, but reconsidered the motion; shook his head and put the glass down. Upon pretext of examining the print and the binding, he opened the book; then closed it at once and pushed it away. He had seen the Museum stamp—bearing date of the preceding day. He fussed nervously at his pipe a moment; then held it to the candle with a hand that trembled and made some of the tobacco spill out, then asked timidly—

“How did you get the book?”

“I went after it myself.”

“Your—self. Mercy! When?”

“While you were stooping for your pipe and glass.”

Hotchkiss moaned.

“Why do you make that noise?”

“Be—because I—I am afraid.”

The boy reached out and touched the trembling hand and said gently—

“There—it is gone.”

[begin page 250] The troubled look passed from the old prohibitionist’s face, and he said, in a sort of soft ecstasy of relief and contentment—

“It tingles all through me—all through me. De—licious! Every fibre—the root of every hair—it is enchantment! Oh magician of the magicians, talk to me—talk! tell me everything.”

“Certainly, if you like.”

“Now, that is lovely! First I will rout out old Rachel and we’ll have a bite and be comfortable and freshen up; I am pretty sharp-set after all these hours, and I reckon you are, too.”

“Wait. It is not necessary. I will order something.”

Smoking dishes began to descend upon the table; it was covered in a moment.

“It’s the Arabian Nights come again! And I am not scared, now. I don’t know why—it was that magic touch, I think. But you didn’t fetch them yourself, this time; I was noticing, and you didn’t go away.”

“No, I sent my servants.”

“I didn’t see them.”

“You can if you wish.”

“I’d give anything!”

The servants became visible; all the room was crowded with them. Trim and shapely little fellows they were; velvety little red fellows, with short horns on their heads and spiked tails at the other end; and those that stood, stood in metal plates, and those that sat—on chairs, in a row upon settees, and on top of the bookcase with their legs dangling—had metal plates under them—“to keep from scorching the furniture,” the boy quietly explained, “these have come but this moment, and of course are hot, yet.”

Hotchkiss asked, a little timidly—

“Are they little devils?”

“Yes.”

“Real ones?”

“Oh, yes—quite.”

“They—are they safe?”

“Perfectly.”

“I don’t need to be afraid?”

“Oh, not at all.”

[begin page 251] “Then I won’t be. I think they are charming. Do they understand English?”

“No, only French. But they could be taught it in a few minutes.”

“It is wonderful. Are they—you won’t mind my asking—relatives?”

“Of mine? No; sons of my father’s subordinates. You are dismissed, young gentlemen, for the present.”

The little fiends vanished.

“Your father is—er—”

“Satan!”

“Good land!”

Hotchkiss sank into his chair weak and limp, and began to pour out broken words and disjointed sentences whose meanings were not always clear but whose general idea was comprehensible. To this effect: from custom bred of his upbringing and his associations he had often talked about Satan with a freedom which was regrettable, but it was really only talk, mere idle talk, he didn’t mean anything by it; in fact there were many points about Satan’s character which he greatly admired, and although he hadn’t said so, publicly, it was an oversight and not intentional—but from this out he meant to open his mouth boldly, let people say what they might and think what they chose—

The boy interrupted him, gently and quietly—

“I don’t admire him.”

Hotchkiss was hard aground, now; his mouth was open, and remained so, but no words came; he couldn’t think of anything judicious to say. Presently he ventured to throw out a feeler—cautiously, tentatively, feelingly, persuasively:

“You see—well, you know—it would be only natural, if I was a devil—a good, kind, honorable devil, I mean—and my father was a good, kind, honorable devil against whom narrow and perhaps wrongful or at least exaggerated prejudices—”

[begin page 252] “But I am not a devil,” said the boy, tranquilly.

Hotchkiss was badly confused, but profoundly relieved.

“I—er—I—well, you know, I suspected as much, I—I—indeed I hadn’t a doubt of it; and—although it—on the whole—oh, good land, I can’t understand it, of course, but I give you my word of honor I like you all the better for it, I do indeed! I feel good, now—good, and comfortable, and in fact happy. Join me—take something! I wish to drink your health; and—and your family’s.”

“With pleasure. Now eat—refresh yourself. I will smoke, if you don’t mind. I like it.”

“Certainly; but eat, too; aren’t you hungry?”

“No, I do not get hungry.”

“Is that actually so?”

“Yes.”

“Ever? Never?”

“No.”

“Ah, it is a pity. You miss a great deal. Now tell me about yourself, won’t you?”

“I shall be glad to do it, for I have a purpose in coming to the earth, and if you should find the matter interesting, you can be useful to me.”

Then the talking and eating began, simultaneously.

---

Ⓐemendation

“I was born before Adam’s fall—”

“Wh-at!”

“It seems to surprise you. Why?”

“Because it caught me unprepared. And because it is six thousand years ago, and you look to be only about fifteen years old.”

“True—that is my age, within a fraction.”

“Only fifteen, and yet—”

“Counting by our system of measurement, I mean—not yours.”

“How is that?”

“A day, with us, is as a thousand years with you.”

Hotchkiss was awed. A seriousness which was near to solemnity settled upon his face. After a meditative pause he said—

“Surely it cannot be that you really and not figuratively mean—”

“Yes—really, not figuratively. A minute of our time is 41⅔ years [begin page 253] of yours. By our system of measurement I am fifteen years old; but by yours I am five million, lacking twenty thousand years.”

Hotchkiss was stunned. He shook his head in a hopeless way, and said, resignedly—

“Go on—I can’t realize it—it is astronomy to me.”

“Of course you cannot realize these things, but do not be troubled; measurements of time and eternity are merely conveniences, they are not of much importance. It is about a week ago that Adam fell—”

“A week?— AhⒶemendation, yes, your week. It is awful—that compression of time! Go on.”

“I was in heaven; I had always lived in heaven, of course; until a week ago, my father had always lived there. But I saw this little world created. I was interested; we were all interested. There is much more interest attaching to the creation of a planet than attaches to the creation of a sun, on account of the life that is going to inhabit it. I have seen many suns created—many indeed, that you are not yet acquainted with, they being so remotely situated in the deeps of space that their light will not reach here for a long time yet; but the planets—I cared the most for them; we all did; I have seen millions of them made, and the Tree planted in the Garden, and the man and the woman placed in its shade, with the animals about them. I saw your Adam and Eve only once; they were happy, then, and innocent. This could have continued forever, but for my father’s conduct. I read it all in the Bible in Mr. Ferguson’s school. As it turned out, Adam’s happiness lasted less than a day—”

“Less than one day?”

“By our reckoning, I mean; by yours he lived nine hundred and twenty years—the bulk of it unhappily.”

“I see; yes, it is true.”

“It was my father’s fault. Then hell was created, in order that Adam’s race might have a place to go to, after death—”

“They could go to heaven, too.”

“That was later. Two days ago. Through the sacrifice made for them by the son of God, the Savior.”

“Is hell so new?”

[begin page 254] “It was not needed before. No Adam in any of the millions of other planets had ever disobeyed and eaten of the forbidden fruit.”

“It is strange.”

“No—for the others were not tempted.”

“How was that?”

“There was no tempter until my father ate of the fruit himself and became one. Then he tempted other angels and they ate of it also; then Adam and the woman.”

“How did your father come to eat of it this time?”

“I did not know at the time.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I was away when it happened; I was away some days, and did not hear of it at all and of the disaster to my father until I got back; then I went to my father’s place to speak with him of it; but his trouble was so new, and so severe, and so amazing to him that he could do nothing but grieve and lament—he could not bear to talk about the details; I merely gathered that when he made the venture it was because his idea of the nature of the fruit was a most erroneous one.”

“Erroneous?”

“Quite erroneous.”

“You do not know in what way it was erroneous?”

“Yes, I think I know now. He probably—in fact unquestionably—supposed that the nature of the fruit was to reveal to human beings the knowledge of good and evil—that, and nothing more; but not to Satan the great angel; he had that knowledge before. We always had it—always. Now why he was moved to taste it himself is not clear; I shall never know until he tells me. But his error was—”

“Yes, what was his error?”

“His error was in supposing that a knowledge of the difference between good and evil was all that the fruit could confer.”

“Did it confer more than that?”

“Consider the passage which says man is prone to evil as the sparks to fly upward Ⓔexplanatory note. Is that true? Is that really the nature of man?—I mean your man—the man of this planet?”

[begin page 255] “Indeed it is—nothing could be truer.”

“It is not true of the men of any other planet. It explains the mystery. My father’s error stands revealed in all its nakedness. The fruit’s office was not confined to conferring the mere knowledge of good and evil, it conferred also the passionate and eager and hungry disposition to do evil. Prone as sparks to fly upward; in other words, prone as water to run down hill—a powerful figure, and means that man’s disposition is wholly evil, uncompromisingly evil, inveterately evil, and that he is as undisposed to do good as water is undisposed to run up hill. Ah, my father’s error brought a colossal disaster upon the men of this planet. It poisoned the men of this planet—poisoned them in mind and body. I see it, plainly.”

“It brought death, too.”

“Yes—whatever that may be. I do not quite understand it. It seems to be a sleep. You do not seem to mind sleep. By my reading I gather that you are not conscious of either death or sleep; that nevertheless you fear the one and do not fear the other. It is very stupid. Illogical.”

Hotchkiss put down his knife and fork and explained the difference between sleep and death; and how a person was not sorry when asleep, but sorry when dead, because—because—

He found it was not so easy to explain why as he had supposed it was going to be; he floundered a while, then broke down. But presently he tried again, and said that death was only a sleep, but that the objection to it was that it was so long; then he remembered that time stands still when one sleeps, and so the difference between a night and a thousand years is really no difference at all so far as the sleeper is personally affected.

However, the boy was thinking, profoundly, and heard none of it; so nothing was lost. By and by the boy said, earnestly—

“The fundamental change wrought in man’s nature by my father’s conduct must remain—it is permanent; but a part of its burden of evil consequences can be lifted from your race, and I will undertake it. Will you help?”

He was applying in the right quarter. Lifting burdens from a whole race was a fine and large enterprizeⒶemendation, and suited Oliver [begin page 256] Hotchkiss’s size and gifts better than any contract he had ever taken hold of yet. He gave in his adhesion with promptness and enthusiasm, and wanted the scheme charted out at once. Privately he was immeasurably proud to be connected in business with an actual angel and son of a devil, but did what he could to keep his exultation from showing. The boy said—

“I cannot map out a definite plan yet; I must first study this race. Its poisoned condition and prominent disposition to do evil differentiate it radically from any men whom I have known before, therefore it is a new race to me and must be exhaustively studied before I shall know where and how to begin. Indefinitely speaking, our plan will be confined to ameliorating the condition of the race in some ways in this life; we are not called upon to concern ourselves with its future fate; that is in abler hands than ours.”

“I hope you will begin your studies right away.”

“I shall. Go to bed, and take your rest. During the rest of the night and to-morrow I will travel about the globe and personally examine some of the nationalities, and learn languages and read the world’s books in the several tongues, and to-morrow night we will talk together here. Meantime the storm has made you a prisoner. Will you have one of my servants to wait on you?”

A genuine little devil all for his own! It was a lovely idea, and swelled Hotchkiss’s vanity to the bursting point. He was lavish with his thanks.

“But he won’t understand what I say to him.”

“He will learn in five minutes. Would you like any particular one?”

“If I could have the cunning little rascal that sat down in the fire after he got cooled off—”

There was a flash of scarlet and the little fiend was present and smiling; and he had with him some books from the school; among them the French-English dictionary and the phonographic shorthand system.

“There. Use him night and day. He knows what he is here for. If he needs help he will provide it. He requires no lights; take them, and go to bed; leave him to study his books. In five minutes he will [begin page 257] be able to talk broken English in case you want him. He will read twelve or fifteen of your books in an hour and learn shorthand besides; then he will be a capable secretary. He will be visible or invisible according to your orders. Give him a name—he has one already, and so have I, but you would not be able to pronounce either of them. Good-bye.”

He vanished.

Hotchkiss stood smiling all sorts of pleasant smiles of intricate and variegated pattern at his little devil, with the idea of making him understand how welcome he was; and he said to himself, “It’s a bitter climate for him, poor little rascal, the fire will go down and he will freeze; I wish I knew how to tell him to run home and warm himself whenever he wants to.”

He brought blankets and made signs to him that these were for him to wrap up in; then he began to pile wood on the fire, but the red stranger took that work promptly off his hands, and did the work like an expert—which he was. Then he sat down on the fire and began to study his book, and his new master took the candle and went away to bed, meditating a name for him. “He is a dear little devil,” he said, “and must have a nice one.” So he named him Edward Nicholson Hotchkiss—after a brother that was dead.

In the morning the world was still invisible, for the powdery snow was still sifting thickly down—noiselessly, now, for the wind had ceased to blow. The new devil appeared in the kitchen and scared aunt Rachel and uncle Jeff out of it, and they fled to the master’s room with the tale. Hotchkiss explained the situation and told them there was no harm in this devil, but a great deal of good; and that he was the property of the wonderful boy, who had strongly recommended him.

“Is he a slave, Marse Oliver?” asked Rachel.

“Yes.”

[begin page 258] “Well, den, dey oughtn’t to be much harm in him, I reckon; but is he a real devil?”

“Yes, genuine.”

“Den how kin he be good?”

“Well, he is, anyway. We have been misinformed about devils. There’s a great deal of ignorant prejudice around, concerning them. I want you to be friends with this one.”

“But how kin we, Marse Oliver?” asked uncle Jeff; “we’s afraid of him. We’d like to be friends wid him, becase we’s afraid of him, en if he stays on de place, ’course we gwyne to do de bes’ we kin; but when he come a skippin’ into de kitchen all red hot like a stack of fire-coals, bless you I didn’t want nothin’ to do wid him. Still, if he’s willin’ to be friends it ain’t gwyne to answer for us to hold back, for Gawd on’y knows what he might do.”

“S’pose things don’t go to suit him, Marse Oliver,” said Rachel, “whatⒶemendation he gwyne do den?”

“Really, you needn’t worry, Rachel, he has a kind disposition, and moreover he wants to be useful—I know it.”

“Why, Marse Oliver, he’ll take en tear up all de hymn-books en—”

“No he won’t; he’s perfectly civil and obliging, and he’ll do anything he is asked to do.”

“Is dat so?”

“I know it.”

“But what kin he do, Marse Oliver? he’s so little, en den he don’t know our ways.”

“Oh, he can do anything—shovel snow, for instance.”

“My! kin he do dat?” asked Jeff. “If he’ll do dat, I’s his friend, for one—right on de spot!”

“Yes, and he can run errands—any errand you want, Rachel.”

“Dat’ud come mighty handy, Marse Oliver,” said Rachel, relenting; “he can’t run none now, ’course, but if de snow ’uz gone—”

“He’ll run them for you, I know he will; I wish he were here, I—”

Edward Nicholson Hotchkiss appeared in their midst, and the [begin page 259] negroes scrambled for the door, but he was there first and barred the way. He smiled an eager and fiery smile, and said—

“I’ve been listening. I want to be friends—don’t be afraid. Give me an errand—I’ll show you.”

Rachel’s teeth chattered a little, and her breath came short and she was as pale as bronze; but she found her tongue, and said—

“I’s yo’ friend—I is, I swah it. Be good to me en ole Jeff, honey—don’t hurt us; don’t do us no harm, for yo’ ma’s sake.”

“Hurt you?—no. Give me an errand—I’ll show you.”

“But chile, dey ain’t no errand; de snow’s so deep, en you’d catch cold, anyway, de way you’s been raised. But sakes, if you’d been here yistiddy evenin’—Marse Oliver I clean forgot de cream, en dey ain’t a drop for yo’ breakfast.”

“I’ll fetch it,” said Edward, “goⒶemendation down—you’ll find it on the table.”

He disappeared. The negroes were troubled, and did not know what to make of this. They were afraid of him again; he must be off his balance, for he could not run errands in this weather. Hotchkiss smoothed away their fears with persuasive speeches, and they presently went below, where they found the new servant trying to tame the cat and not succeeding; but the cream was there, and their respect for Edward and his abilities received a great impulse.