e an animal of another species, in spite
of all they could do, and they regarded his virtues in the light of
uncertain tricks. Mrs. Rose never thought at any time of leaving him in
the house alone without hiding the spoons, and Miss Elvira never left
her gold watch unguarded.

Nobody knew whether the Dickey boy was aware of these lurking suspicions
or not; he was so subdued that it was impossible to tell how much he
observed. Nobody knew how homesick he was, but he went about every day
full of fierce hunger for his miserable old home. Miserable as it had
been, there had been in it a certain element of shiftless ease and
happiness. The Dickey boy's sickly mother had never chided him; she had
not cared if he tracked mud into the house. How anxiously he scraped his
feet before entering the Rose kitchen. The Dickey boy's dissipated
father had been gentle and maudlin, but never violent. All the Dickey
children had done as they chose, and they had agreed well. They were not
a quarrelsome family. Their principal faults were idleness and a general
laxity of morals which was quite removed from active wickedness. "All
the Dickeys needed was to be bolstered up," one woman in the village
said; and the Dickey boy was being bolstered up in the Rose family.

They called him Dickey, using his last name for his first, which was
Willy. Mrs. Rose straightened herself unconsciously when she found that
out. "We can't have two Willies in the family, anyhow," said she; "we'll
have to call you Dickey."

Once the Dickey boy's married sister came to see him, and Mrs. Rose
treated her with such stiff politeness that the girl, who was fair and
pretty and gaudily dressed, told her husband when she got home that she
would never go into _that_ woman's house again. Occasionally Mrs. Rose,
who felt a duty in the matter, took Dickey to visit his little brothers
and sisters at the almshouse. She even bought some peppermint-candy for
him to take them. He really had many a little extra kindness shown him;
sometimes Miss Elvira gave him a penny, and once Mr. Hiram Fairbanks
gave him a sweet-apple tree--that was really quite a magnificent gift.
Mrs. Rose could hardly believe it when Willy told her. "Well, I must say
I never thought Hiram would do such a thing as that, close as he is,"
said she. "I was terribly taken aback when he gave that tree to Willy,
but this beats all. Why, odd years it might bring in twenty dollars!"

"Uncle Hiram gave it to him," W