m your
rabbits," he said, in an embarrassed voice.

"Willy Rose!" cried his mother, "you haven't changed those muddy shoes!
Go right in this minute, 'round by the kitchen door, and take this boy
'round with you; he can sit down on the door-step and help you clean
your sassafras-root."

Willy disappeared lingeringly around the house, and the other boy, on
being further bidden by Mr. Fairbanks, followed him. "Willy," his mother
cried after him, "mind you sit down on the door-step and tie your shoes!
I ain't goin' to have that Dickey boy left alone; his folks are nothin'
but a pack of thieves," she remarked in a lower tone. "What are you
doing with him, Hiram?"

Hiram hesitated. "Well, 'Mandy, you was sayin' the other day that you
wished you had a boy to run errands, and split up kindlin's, and be kind
of company for Willy."

"You ain't brought that Dickey boy?"

"Now, look here, 'Mandy--"

"I ain't going to have him in the house."

"Jest look here a minute, 'Mandy, till I tell you how it happened, and
then you can do jest as you're a mind to about it. I was up by the
Ruggles's this afternoon, and Mis' Ruggles, she come out to the gate,
and hailed me. She wanted to know if I didn't want a boy. Seems the
Dickey woman died last week; you know the father died two year ago.
Well, there was six children, and the oldest boy's skipped, nobody knows
where, and the oldest girl has just got married, and this boy is the
oldest of the four that's left. They took the three little ones to the
poorhouse, and Mis' Ruggles she took this boy in, and she wanted to keep
him, but her own boy is big enough to do all the chores, and she didn't
feel as if she could afford to. She says he's a real nice little fellow,
and his mother wa'n't a bad woman; she was jest kind of sickly and
shiftless. I guess old Dickey wa'n't much, but he's dead. Mis' Ruggles
says this little chap hates awful to go to the poorhouse, and it ain't
no kind of risk to take him, and she'd ought to know. She's lived right
there next door to the Dickeys ever since she was married. I knew you
wanted a boy to do chores 'round, long as Willy wasn't strong enough, so
I thought I'd fetch him along. But you can do jest as you're a mind to."

"Now, Hiram Fairbanks, you know the name those Dickeys have always had.
S'pose I took that boy, and he stole?"

"Mis' Ruggles says she'd trust him with anything."

"She ain't got so much as I have to lose. There I've got two dozen sol