The Uncalled - Paul Laurence Dunbar (read aloud txt) 📗

floor, absorbed in his book. The man's face lighted up: he pulled the door to long enough to say, "I tell you, Miss Hester, that boy 's a-goin' to make a great reader or a speaker or somethin'. Jest look how wrapped up he is in that book."

"Well, I do hope an' pray to goodness that he 'll make somethin' better than his father ever made."

"Ef he don't under yore trainin', it 'll be because there ain't nothin' in him.--Come here, Freddie," called Hodges, pushing the door open, and holding out his hand with a smile. The child got up from the floor and came and put his hand in the outstretched one.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Miss Hester. "I tried my level best to git that child to make up with me, an' he would n't."

"It's jest like I say, Miss Hester: you 'ain't never had no experunce in raisin' childern."

"An' how many have you ever raised, 'Liphalet?"

The bachelor acknowledged defeat by a sheepish smile, and turned again to the child. "You want to go a-ridin' in my buggy, Freddie?"

"Yes, sir," said the child, unhesitatingly.

"All right; Uncle 'Liph 'll take him out fur a while. Git his hat an' wrap him up, Miss Hester, so Jack Frost can't ketch him."

The man stood smiling down into the child's face: the boy, smiling back, tightened his grasp on the big hand. They were friends from that moment, Eliphalet Hodges and Fred.

They went out to the old phaeton, with Miss Prime's parting injunction ringing after them, "Don't keep that child out in the cold too long, 'Liphalet, an' bring him back here croupy."

"Oh, now, don't you trouble yoreself, Miss Hester: me an' Freddie air a-goin' to git along all right. We ain't a-goin' to freeze, air we, Freddie, boy? Ah, not by a long sight; not ef Uncle 'Liph knows hisself."

All the time the genial man was talking, he was tucking the lap-robe snugly about the child and making him comfortable. Then he clucked to the old mare, and they rattled away.

There was a far-away look in Miss Prime's eyes as she watched them till they turned the corner and were out of sight. "I never did see sich a man as 'Liphalet Hodges. Why, a body 'd think that he 'd been married an' raised a whole houseful o' childern. He's worse 'n a old hen. An' it 's marvellous the way Frederick took to him. Everybody calls the child Freddie. I must learn to call him that: it will make him feel more home-like, though it does sound foolish."

She went on with her work, but it was interrupted every now and then by strange fits of abstraction and revery, an unusual thing for this bustling and practical spinster. But then there are few of us but have had our hopes and dreams, and it would be unfair to think that Miss Hester was an exception. For once she had broken through her own discipline, and in her own kitchen was spending precious moments in dreams, and all because a man and a child had rattled away in a rickety buggy.


CHAPTER V

"Goodness gracious, Mis' Smith," exclaimed Mrs. Martin, rushing excitedly into the house of her next-door neighbour, "you 'd ought to seen what I seen jest now."

"Do tell, Mis' Martin! What on airth was it?"

"Oh, I 'm shore you 'd never guess in the wide, wide world."

"An' I 'm jest as shore that I ain't a-goin' to pester my head tryin' to: so go on an' tell me what it was."

"Lawsy me! what next 'll happen, an' what does things mean, anyhow?"

"I can't tell you. Fur my part, I 'ain't heerd what 'things' air yit." Mrs. Smith was getting angry.

"My! Mis' Smith, don't git so impatient. Give me time to git my breath: it 'll be enough, when I do tell you, to take away yore breath, jest like it did mine."

"Sallie Martin, you do beat all fur keepin' a body on the hooks."

"T ain't my fault, Mis' Smith. I declare I 'm too astonished to speak. You know I was a-standin' in my window, not a-thinkin' nor expectin' nothin', jest like any person would, you know--"

"Yes, yes; go on."

"I was jest a-lookin' down the street, careless, when who should I see drive up to Miss Prime's door, an' hitch his hoss an' go in, but Brother 'Liphalet Hodges!"

"Well, sakes alive, Sallie Martin, I hope you ain't a-considerin' that strange. Why, you could 'a' seen that very same sight any time these fifteen years."

"But wait a minute till I tell you. I ain't done yit, by no means. The strange part 'ain't come. I thought I 'd jest wait at the window and see how long Brother Hodges would stay: not that it was any o' my bus'ness, of course, or that I wanted to be a spyin' on anybody, but sorter fur--fur cur'osity, you know."

"Cert'n'y," said Mrs. Smith, feelingly. She could sympathise with such a sentiment.

"Well, after a while he come out a-smilin' as pleasant as a basket o' chips; an' I like to fell through the winder, fur he was a-leadin' by the hand--who do you suppose?"

"I 'ain't got a mortal idea who," said Mrs. Smith, "unless it was Miss Hester, an' they 're married at last."

"No, indeed, 't wa'n't her. It was that little Brent boy that his mother died the other day."

"Sallie Martin, what air you a-tellin' me?"

"It 's the gospel truth, Melviny Smith, as shore as I 'm a-settin' here. Now what does it mean?"

"The good Lord only knows. Leadin' that little Brent boy? Ef it was n't you a-settin' there tellin' me this, Mis' Martin, I would n't believe it. You don't suppose Hodges has took him to raise, do you?"

"How in the name of mercy is he goin' to raise any child, when there ain't no women folks about his house 'ceptin' old Marier, an' she so blind an' rheumaticky that she kin sca'cely git about?"

"Well, what 's he a-doin' with the child, then?"

"That 's jest what I 'm a-goin' to find out. I 'm a-goin' down to Miss Prime's. Len' me yore shawl, Melviny."

"You ain't never goin' to dare to ask her, air you?"

"You jest trust me to find things out without givin' myself away. I won't never let her know what I want right out, but I 'll talk it out o' her."

"What a woman you air, Sallie Martin!" said Mrs. Smith, admiringly. "But do hurry back an' tell me what she says: I 'm jest dyin' to know."

"I 'll be back in little or no time, because I can't stay, nohow."

Mrs. Martin threw the borrowed shawl over her head and set off down the street. She and her friend were not dwellers on the mean street, and so they could pretend to so nearly an equal social footing with Miss Prime as to admit of an occasional neighbourly call.

Through the window Miss Prime saw her visitor approaching, and a grim smile curved the corners of her mouth. "Comin' fur news," muttered the spinster. "She 'll git all she wants before she goes." But there was no trace of suspicion in her manner as she opened the door at Mrs. Martin's rap.

"Hey oh, Miss Hester, busy as usual, I see."

"Yes, indeed. People that try to do their dooty 'ain't got much time fur rest in this world."

"No, indeed; it's dig, dig, dig, and work, work, work."

"Take off yore shawl an' set down, Sallie. It 's a wonder you don't take yore death o' cold or git plum full o' neuralgy, a-runnin' around in this weather with nothin' but a shawl over yore head."

"La, Miss Hester, they say that worthless people 's hard to kill. It ain't allus true, though, fur there was poor Margar't Brent, she was n't worth much, but my! she went out like a match."

"Yes, but matches don't go out until their time ef they 're held down right; an' it 's jest so with people."

"That 's true enough, Miss Hester. Was you to Margar't's funeral?"

"Oh, yes, I went."

"Did you go out to the cimetery?"

"Oomph huh."

"Did she look natural?"

"Jest as natural as one could expect after a hard life an' a hard death."

"Pore Margar't!" Mrs. Martin sighed. There was a long and embarrassed silence. Miss Prime's lips were compressed, and she seemed more aggressively busy than usual. She bustled about as if every minute were her last one. She brushed off tables, set chairs to rights, and tried the golden-brown cup-cake with a straw to see if it were done. Her visitor positively writhed with curiosity and discomfiture. Finally she began again. "Margar't only had one child, did n't she?"

"Yes, that was all."

"Pore little lamb. Motherless childern has a hard time of it."

"Indeed, most of 'em do."

"Do you know what 's become of the child, Miss Hester?"

"Yes, I do, Sallie Martin, an' you do too, or you would n't be a-settin' there beatin' about the bush, askin' me all these questions."

This sudden outburst gave Mrs. Martin quite a turn, but she exclaimed, "I declare to goodness, Miss Hester, I 'ain't heerd a livin' thing about it, only--"

She checked herself, but her relentless hostess caught at the word and demanded, "Only what, Mis' Martin?"

"Well, I seen Brother 'Liphalet Hodges takin' him away from here in his buggy--"

"An' so you come down to see what was what, eh, so 's you could be the first to tell the neighbourhood?"

"Now, Miss Hester, you know that I ain't one o' them that talks, but I do feel sich an interest in the pore motherless child, an' when I seen Brother Hodges a-takin' him away, I thought perhaps he was a-goin' to take him to raise."

"Well, Brother Hodges ain't a-goin' to take him to raise."

"Mercy sakes! Miss Hester, don't git mad, but who is?"

"I am, that 's who."

"Miss Prime, what air you a-sayin'? You shorely don't mean it. What kin you do with a child?"

"I kin train him up in the way he ought to go, an' keep him out o' other people's houses an' the street."

"Well, o' course, that 's somethin'," said Mrs. Martin, weakly.

"Somethin'? Why, it 's everything."

The visitor had now gotten the information for which she was looking, and was anxious to be gone. She was absolutely bursting with her news.

"Well, I must be goin'," she said, replacing her shawl and standing in embarrassed indecision. "I only run in fur a minute. I hope you 'ain't got no hard feelin's at my inquisitiveness."

"Not a bit of it. You wanted to know, an' you come and asked, that 's all."

"I hope you 'll git along all right with the child."

"I sha' n't stop at hopin'. I shall take the matter to the Lord in prayer."

"Yes, He knows best. Good-bye, Miss Hester."

"Good-bye, Sallie; come in ag'in." The invitation sounded a little bit sarcastic, and once more the grim smile played about Miss Prime's mouth.

"I 'low," she observed to herself, as she took the cake from the oven for the last time, tried it, and set it on the table,--"I