Mr. Sitles, how much would a broom-machine cost you?” asked the minister.
“More’n it’s any use to think on. It’ll cost seventy dollars, and if it cost seventy cents ’twould be jest exactly seventy cents more’n I could afford to pay. For the money my ole woman gits fer washin’ don’t go noways at all towards feedin’ the four children, let alone buying me a machine.”
The minister looked at his cane, but it did not answer him. Something must be done. The minister was sure of that. Perhaps the walking-stick was, too. But what?
That was the question.
The minister told Sitles good-bye, and started to make other visits. And on the way the cane kept crying out, “Something must be done, – something MUST be done, – something MUST be done,” making the must ring out sharper every time. When Mr. Blake and the walking-stick got to the market-house, just as they turned off from Milk Street into the busier Main Street, the cane changed its tune and begun to say, “But what, – but what, – but WHAT, – but WHAT,” until it said it so sharply that the minister’s head ached, and he put Old Ebony under his arm, so that it couldn’t talk any more. It was a way he had of hushing it up when he wanted to think.
CHAPTER II
“De biskits is cold, and de steaks is cold as – as – ice, and dinner’s spiled!” said Curlypate, a girl about three years old, as Mr. Blake came in from his forenoon of visiting. She tried to look very much vexed and “put out,” but there was always either a smile or a cry hidden away in her dimpled cheek.
“Pshaw! Curlypate,” said Mr. Blake, as he put down his cane, “you don’t scold worth a cent!” And he lifted her up and kissed her.
And then Mamma Blake smiled, and they all sat down to the table. While they ate, Mr. Blake told about his morning visits, and spoke of Parm’ly without coal, and Peter Sitles with no broom-machine, and described little Ben Sitles’s hungry face, and told how he had visited the widow Martin, who had no sewing-machine, and who had to receive help from the overseer of the poor. The overseer told her that she must bind out her daughter, twelve years old, and her boy of ten, if she expected to have any help; and the mother’s heart was just about broken at the thought of losing her children.
Now, while all this was taking place, Willie Blake, the minister’s son, a boy about thirteen years of age, sat by the big porcelain water-pitcher, listening to all that was said. His deep blue eyes looked over the pitcher at his father, then at his mother, taking in all their descriptions of poverty with a wondrous pitifulness. But he did not say much. What went on in his long head I do not know, for his was one of those heads that projected forward and backward, and the top of which overhung the base, for all the world like a load of hay. Now and then his mother looked at him, as if she would like to see through his skull and read his thoughts. But I think she didn’t see anything but the straight, silken, fine, flossy hair, silvery white, touched a little bit, – only a little, – as he turned it in looking from one to the other, with a tinge of what people call a golden, but what is really a sort of a pleasant straw color. He usually talked, and asked questions, and laughed like other boys; but now he seemed to be swallowing the words of his father and mother more rapidly even than he did his dinner; for, like most boys, he ate as if it were a great waste of time to eat. But when he was done he did not hurry off as eagerly as usual to reading or to play. He sat and listened.
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