Part 10 (1/2)

He was silent a moment. ”Go on!” cried the child. ”You ain't half s'posing, brown man.”

”No more I am!” said Calvin Parks. ”Well, little un, I dono as I can play this game real well, after all. S'pose after a spell the boy's mother went away too. Where? Well, she'd go to the best place there was, you know; nat'rally she would.”

”That's heaven!” said the child decidedly.

”Jes' so! to be sure!” Calvin a.s.sented. ”S'pose she went to heaven; to see after the little gal, likely; hey? That'd leave father and the boy alone, wouldn't it? Well now, s'pose father couldn't stand it real well without her. What then, little un? S'pose the more he tried it the less he liked it, till b.u.mby he begun to take things to make him forget, as warn't the best things in the world for him to take. S'pose he did; do you blame him?”

”N--no!” said the child. ”Unless you mean stole 'em!”

”No! no! not that kind of takin', little un; 'tother kind, like when you take med'cine. S'pose he kind o' made believe _'twas_ med'cine for a spell. Then s'pose he got so he warn't jest like himself, and spoke kind o' sharp, and took a strap to the boy now and then, harder than he would by natur', you wouldn't blame him, would you? Not a mite! But s'pose things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one of 'em. Then--s'pose one night--when he warn't himself, mind you!--he shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire.

You wouldn't blame him for that either, would you? Poor father!”

He paused.

”What do you s'pose then?” cried the child eagerly. ”Did the house burn up?”

Calvin made a silent gesture toward the ruined cellar. Something in it struck the child silent too. She crept nearer, and slid her hand into Calvin's.

”You don't s'pose they was burned, do you?” she said in an awestruck whisper.

”No, they warn't burned,” said Calvin slowly. ”But father never helt his head up again, and 'twarn't a great while before he was gone too, after mother and the little gal. So then the boy was left alone. See?”

”_Poor_ brown boy!” said the child. ”S'pose what he did then!”

”S'pose he lit out!” said Calvin Parks; ”And s'pose I light out too, little gal. It's gettin' towards sundown, and I've got quite a ways to go before night.”

He rose, and stretched his brown length, towering a great height above the rose-bush.

”But before I go,” he added; ”s'pose we see what hossy's got in back of him. I shouldn't wonder a mite if we found a stick of candy. S'pose we go and look!”

”S'pose we do!” cried Mittie May.

CHAPTER IX

CANDY-MAKING

”If there's a pleasanter place than this in your village, I wish you'd show it to me!” said Calvin Parks. ”I declare, Mr. Cheeseman, it does me good every time I come in here.”

Mr. Cheeseman looked about him with contented eyes.

”It is pleasant,” he said. ”I'm glad you like it, friend Parks, for you are one of the folks I like to see in it, and them isn't everybody.”

Mr. Ivory Cheeseman certainly did look rather like a monkey, but such a wise monkey! He was little and spare, with nothing profuse about him save his white hair, which grew thick and close as a cap; his whole aspect was dry and frosty, ”like the right kind of winter mornin',”

Calvin Parks said when he described the old man to Mary Sands. The kitchen in which he and Calvin were sitting was just behind the shop; a low, dark room, with a little stove in the middle, glowing like a red jewel, and waking dusky gleams in the pots and pans ranged along the walls. They were not altogether ordinary pots and pans. Uncle Ivory, as East Cyrus called him, was a collector in a modest way, and his bits of copper, bra.s.s and pewter were dear to his heart. Lonzo, the village ”natural,” found the gaiety of his life in polis.h.i.+ng them, and receiving pay in sugar-plums. He was at work now in a dim corner, chuckling to himself as he scoured a huge old pewter dish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. CHEESEMAN.]

The air was full of the warm, homely fragrance of mola.s.ses candy; a pot of it was boiling on the stove, and from time to time Uncle Ivory stirred it, lifted a spoonful, and watched the drip. On a table near by other candies were cooling, peanut taffy, lemon drops, and great ma.s.ses of pink and white cream candy.