Big Brother | Page 9

become if left at home all day.
So he could not help feeling glad when Molly went home on a visit, and Grandma Dearborn said her rheumatism was so bad that she needed his help. True, he had all sorts of tasks that he heartily despised,--washing dishes, kneading dough, sweeping and dusting,--all under the critical old lady's exacting supervision. But he preferred even that to being sent off to school alone every day.
One evening, just about sundown, he was out in the corncrib, shelling corn for the large flock of turkeys they were fattening for market. He heard Grandma Dearborn go into the barn, where her husband was milking. They were both a little deaf, and she spoke loud in order to be heard above the noise of the milk pattering into the pail. She had come out to look at one of the calves they intended selling.
"It's too bad," he heard her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set her heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such a young one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but he doesn't want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He always was closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see the little fellow go."
"Yes," was the answer, "he's a likely lad; but we're gettin' old, mother, and one is about all we can do well by. Sometimes I think maybe we've bargained for too much, tryin' to keep even one. So it's best to let the little one go before we get to settin' sech store by him that we can't."
A vague terror seized Steven as he realized who it was they were talking about. He lay awake a long time that night smoothing Robin's tangled curls, and crying at the thought of the motherless baby away among strangers, with no one to snuggle him up warm or sing him to sleep. Then there was another thought that wounded him deeply. Twist it whichever way he might, he could construe Mr. Dearborn's last remark to mean but one thing. They considered him a burden. How many plans he made night after night before he fell asleep! He would take Robin by the hand in the morning, and they would slip away and wander off to the woods together. They could sleep in barns at night, and he could stop at the farmhouses and do chores to pay for what they ate. Then they need not be a trouble to any one. Maybe in the summer they could find a nice dry cave to live in. Lots of people had lived that way. Then in a few years he would be big enough to have a house of his own. All sorts of improbable plans flocked into his little brain under cover of the darkness, but always vanished when the daylight came.
The next Saturday that they went to town was a cold, blustering day. They started late, taking a lunch with them, not intending to come home until the middle of the afternoon.
The wind blew a perfect gale by the time they reached town. Mr. Dearborn stopped his team in front of one of the principal groceries, saying, "Hop out, Steven, and see what they're paying for turkeys to-day."
As he sprang over the wheel an old gentleman came running around the corner after his hat, which the wind had carried away.
Steven caught it and gave it to him. He clapped it on his bald crown with a good-natured laugh. "Thanky, sonny!" he exclaimed heartily. Then he disappeared inside the grocery just as Mr. Dearborn called out, "I believe I'll hitch the horses and go in too; I'm nearly frozen."
Steven followed him into the grocery, and they stood with their hands spread out to the stove while they waited for the proprietor. He was talking to the old gentleman whose hat Steven had rescued.
He seemed to be a very particular kind of customer.
"Oh, go on! go on!" he exclaimed presently. "Wait on those other people while I make up my mind."
While Mr. Dearborn was settling the price of his turkeys, the old gentleman poked around like an inquisitive boy, thumping the pumpkins, smelling the coffee, and taking occasional picks at the raisins. Presently he stopped in front of Steven with a broad, friendly smile on his face.
"You're from the country, ain't you?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," answered Steven in astonishment.
"Came from there myself, once," he continued with a chuckle. "Law, law! You'd never think it now. Fifty years makes a heap o' difference."
He took another turn among the salt barrels and cracker boxes, then asked suddenly, "What's your name, sonny?"
"Steven," answered the boy, still more surprised.
The old fellow gave another chuckle and rubbed his