Part 6 (1/2)
Uncle Ben put the tongs in the chimney nook, and said:
”There is a bunch on your arm, Ben.”
”No, no, no, uncle.”
”There is, and it moves about.”
”I have no wound, or boil, nor anything, uncle.”
”There it goes again, or else my head is wrong. There! there! Abiah, stop spinning a minute and come here.”
The wheel stopped. Abiah, with a troubled look, came to the hearth and leaned over it with one hand against the shelf.
”What has he been doing now?” she asked in a troubled tone.
”Look at his arm there! It bulges out.”
Uncle Ben put out his hand to touch the protrusion. He laid his finger on the place carefully, when suddenly the bunch was gone, and just then appeared a little head outside the sleeve.
”I told you that there was something there! I knew that there was all the time.”
There was--it was the little covey or guinea pig.
”What did I tell you before Ben came in?” said Uncle Benjamin.
Little Ben did not know what his uncle had said to his mother before he opened the door; but he heard him say now mysteriously:
”It is a cold day for shelterless things. That little bunch on his arm ill.u.s.trates what I mean by personality. There are more guinea pigs than one in this cold world.”
Abiah went to her wheel in silence, and it began to buzz again.
Little Ben went into the room where his father was at work.
The wheel stopped.
”I do love that boy,” said Abiah, ”notwithstanding all the fault they find with him.”
”So do I, Abiah. I'm glad that you made him my G.o.dson. All people are common in this world except those who have personality. He had a great-uncle that was just like him, and, Abiah, he became a friend of Lord Halifax.”
”I am afraid that poor little Ben, after all his care of the guinea pig, will never commend himself to Lord Halifax. But we can not tell.”
”No, Abiah, we can not tell, but stranger things have happened, and such things begin in that way.”
CHAPTER VII.
UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD.
LITTLE Ben had some reasons to dread the visits of his two stately aunts from Nantucket, the schoolmarms, whom his mother called ”the girls.”