J. Cole | Page 4

says, 'Oh, please say "We're sooted," and ask the lady if I may stay.' So, I've taken the liberty, ma'am," said Cook, "for somehow I like that little chap, and there's a deal in him, I do believe."
So saying, Cook retired; and, in a moment, J. Cole was standing in her place, the blue eyes brimming over with tears, and an eager anxiety as to what his fate would be making his poor little hands clutch at his coat-sleeves, and his feet shuffle about so nervously, that I had not the courage to grieve him by a refusal.
"Well, Joseph," I said, "I have decided to give you a month's trial. I shall write to the gentleman who employs your brother; and if he speaks well of you, you may stay."
"And may I stay now, please?" he said. "May I stay before you gets any answer to your letter to say I'm all right? I think you'd better let me; there ain't no boy; and Mrs. Cook and Mary'll 'ave a lot to do. I can stay in the stable, if you don't like to let me be in the house, afore you writes the letter."
"No, Joe," I replied: "you may not be a good, honest boy, but I think you are; and you shall stay here. Now go back to Mrs. Wilson, and finish your milk, and eat something more if you can, then have a good rest and a wash; they will show you where you are to sleep, and at dinner, this evening, I shall see if you can wait at table."
"Thank you very kindly," said the boy, his whole face beaming with delight, "and I'll be sure and do everythink I can for you." Then he went quickly out of the room; for I could see he was quite overcome, now that the uncertainty was over.
Alone once more, I reasoned with myself, and felt I was doing an unwise thing. Just at that time my husband was away on business for some months; and I had no one to advise me, and no one to say me nay either. My conscience told me my husband would say, "We cannot tell who this boy is, where he has lived, or who are his associates; he may be connected with a gang of thieves for what we know to the contrary. Wait, and have proper references before trusting him in the house."
And he would be right to say so to me, but not every one listens to conscience when it points the opposite way to inclination. Well, J. Cole remained; and when I entered the dining-room, to my solitary dinner, he was there, with a face shining from soap and water, his curls evidently soaped too, to make them go tidily on his forehead. The former page having left his livery jacket and trousers, Mary had let Joe dress in them, at his earnest request.
She told me afterwards that he had sewn up the clothes in the neatest manner wherever they could be made smaller; and the effect of the jacket, which he had stuffed out in the chest with hay, as we discovered by the perfume, was very droll. He had a great love of bright colors, and the trousers being large, showed bright red socks; the jacket sleeves being much too short for the long arms, of which he was so proud, allowed the wristbands of a vivid blue flannel shirt to be seen.
I was alone, so could put up with this droll figure at my elbow; but the seriousness of his face was such a contrast to the comicality of the rest of him, that I found myself beginning to smile every now and then, but directly I saw the serious eyes on me, I felt obliged to become grave at once.
The waiting at table I could not exactly pronounce a success; for, although Joe's quick eyes detected in an instant if I wanted anything, his anxiety to be "first in the field," and give Mary no chance of instructing him in his duties, made him collide against her more than once in his hasty rushes to the sideboard and back to my elbow with the dishes, which he generally handed to me long before he reached me, his long arms enabling him to reach me with his hands while he was yet some distance from me, and often on the wrong side. I also noticed when I wanted water he lifted the water-bottle on high, and poured as though it was something requiring a "head." Mary nearly caused a catastrophe at that moment by frowning at him, and saying, sotto voce, "Whatever are you doing? Is that the way to pour out water? It ain't hale, stoopid!"
Joe's face became scarlet; and to hide his confusion