Queer Stories for Boys and Girls | Page 9

under my jacket fer all that. Now, there's that Ben of mine," and here
Sitles pointed to a restless little fellow of nine years old, whose pants
had been patched and pieced until they had more colors than Joseph's
coat. He was barefoot, ragged, and looked hungry, as some poor
children always do. Their minds seem hungrier than their bodies. He
was rocking a baby in an old cradle. "There's Ben," continued the blind
man, "he's as peart a boy as you ever see, preacher Blake, ef I do say it
as hadn't orter say it. Bennie hain't got no clothes. I can't beg. But Ben
orter be in school." Here Peter Sitles choked a little.
"How's broom-making Peter?" said the minister.
"Well, you see, it's the machines as is a-spoiling us. The machines
makes brooms cheap, and what can a blind feller like me do agin the
machines with nothing but my fingers? 'Tain't no sort o' use to butt my
head agin the machines, when I ain't got no eyes nother. It's like a goat

trying it on a locomotive. Ef I could only eddicate Peter and the other
two, I'd be satisfied. You see, I never had no book-larnin' myself, and I
can't talk proper no more'n a cow can climb a tree."
"But, Mr. Sitles, how much would a broom-machine cost you?" asked
the minister.
"More'n it's any use to think on. It'll cost seventy dollars, and if it cost
seventy cents 'twould be jest exactly seventy cents more'n I could
afford to pay. For the money my ole woman gits fer washin' don't go
noways at all towards feedin' the four children, let alone buying me a
machine."
The minister looked at his cane, but it did not answer him. Something
must be done. The minister was sure of that. Perhaps the walking-stick
was, too. But what?
That was the question.
The minister told Sitles good-by, and started to make other visits. And
on the way the cane kept crying out, "Something must be
done--something MUST be done--something MUST be done," making
the must ring out sharper every time. When Mr. Blake and the
walking-stick got to the market-house, just as they turned off from Milk
Street into the busier Main Street, the cane changed its tune and begun
to say, "But what--but what--but WHAT--but WHAT," until it said it so
sharply that the minister's head ached, and he put Old Ebony under his
arm, so that it couldn't talk any more. It was a way he had of hushing it
up when he wanted to think.
II.
LONG-HEADED WILLIE.
"De biskits is cold, and de steaks is cold as--as--ice, and dinner's
spiled!" said Curlypate, a girl about three years old, as Mr. Blake came
in from his forenoon of visiting. She tried to look very much vexed and
"put out," but there was always either a smile or a cry hidden away in

her dimpled cheek.
"Pshaw! Curlypate," said Mr. Blake as he put down his cane, "you don't
scold worth a cent!" And he lifted her up and kissed her.
And then Mamma Blake smiled, and they all sat down to the table.
While they ate, Mr. Blake told about his morning visits, and spoke of
Parm'ly without coal, and Peter Sitles with no broom-machine, and
described little Ben Sitles' hungry face, and told how he had visited the
widow Martin, who had no sewing-machine, and who had to receive
help from the overseer of the poor. The overseer told her that she must
bind out her daughter, twelve years old, and her boy of ten, if she
expected to have any help; and the mother's heart was just about broken
at the thought of losing her children.
Now, while all this was taking place, Willie Blake, the minister's son, a
boy about thirteen years of age, sat by the big porcelain water-pitcher,
listening to all that was said. His deep blue eyes looked past the pitcher
at his father, then at his mother, taking in all their descriptions of
poverty with a wondrous pitifulness. But he did not say much. What
went on in his long head I do not know, for his was one of those heads
that projected forward and backward, and the top of which overhung
the base, for all the world like a load of hay. Now and then his mother
looked at him, as if she would like to see through and read his thoughts.
But I think she didn't see anything but the straight, silken, fine, flossy
hair, silvery white, touched a little bit--only a little--as he turned it in
looking from one to the other, with a tinge of what people call a golden,
but what is really a sort of a pleasant straw color. He usually