Chapter 2

Mrs. Dearborn was not a very observing woman or she would have seen why he "was scarcely a mite of trouble." If there was never a crumb left on the doorstep where Robin sat to eat his lunch, it was because Big Brother's careful fingers had picked up every one. If she never found any tracks of little bare feet on the freshly scrubbed kitchen floor, it was because his watchful eyes had spied them first, and he had wiped away every trace.

He had an instinctive feeling that if he would keep Robin with him he must not let any one feel that he was a care or annoyance. So he never relaxed his watchfulness in the daytime, and slept with one arm thrown across him at night.

Sometimes, after supper, when it was too late to go outdoors again, the restless little feet kicked thoughtlessly against the furniture, or the meddlesome fingers made Mrs. Dearborn look at him warningly over her spectacles and shake her head.

Sometimes the shrill little voice, with its unceasing questions, seemed to annoy the old farmer as he dozed over his weekly newspaper beside the lamp. Then, if it was too early to go to bed, Steven would coax him over in a corner to look at the book that Mrs. Estel had given him, explaining each picture in a low voice that could not disturb the deaf old couple.

It was at these times that the old feeling of loneliness came back so overwhelmingly. Grandpa and Grandma, as they called them, were kind in their way, but even to their own children they had been undemonstrative and cold. Often in the evenings they seemed to draw so entirely within themselves, she with her knitting and he with his paper or accounts, that Steven felt shut out, and apart. "Just the strangers within thy gates," he sometimes thought to himself. He had heard that expression a long time ago, and it often came back to him. Then he would put his arm around Robin and hug him up close, feeling that the world was so big and lonesome, and that he had no one else to care for but him.

Sometimes he took him up early to the little room under the roof, and, lying on the side of the bed, made up more marvellous stories than any the book contained.

Often they drew the big wooden rocking-chair close to the window, and, sitting with their arms around each other, looked out on the moonlit stillness of the summer night. Then, with their eyes turned starward, they talked of the far country beyond; for Steven tried to keep undimmed in Robin's baby memory a living picture of the father and mother he was so soon forgetting.

"Don't you remember," he would say, "how papa used to come home in the evening and take us both on his knees, and sing 'Kingdom Coming' to us? And how mamma laughed and called him a big boy when he got down on the floor and played circus with us?

"And don't you remember how we helped mamma make cherry pie for dinner one day? You were on the doorstep with some dough in your hands, and a greedy old hen came up and gobbled it right out of your fingers."

Robin would laugh out gleefully at each fresh reminiscence, and then say: "Tell some more r'members, Big Brother!" And so Big Brother would go on until a curly head drooped over on his shoulder and a sleepy voice yawned "Sand-man's a-comin'."

The hands that undressed him were as patient and deft as a woman's. He missed no care or tenderness.

When he knelt down in his white gown, just where the patch of moonlight lay on the floor, his chubby hands crossed on Big Brother's knee, there was a gentle touch of caressing fingers on his curls as his sleepy voice repeated the evening prayer the far away mother had taught them.

There was always one ceremony that had to be faithfully performed, no matter how sleepy he might be. The black dancing bear had always to be put to bed in a cracker box and covered with a piece of red flannel.

One night he looked up gravely as he folded it around his treasure and said, "Robin tucks ze black dancin' bear in bed, an' Big Brother tucks in Robin. Who puts Big Brother to bed?"

"Nobody, now," answered Steven with a quivering lip, for his child's heart ached many a night for the lullaby and bedtime petting he so sorely missed.

"Gramma Deebun do it?" suggested Robin quickly.

"No: Grandma Dearborn has the rheumatism. She couldn't walk up-stairs."

"She got ze wizzim-tizzim," echoed Robin solemnly. Then his face lighted up with a happy thought. "Nev' mind; Robin'll put Big Brother to bed _all_ ze nights when he's a man." And Big Brother kissed the sweet mouth and was comforted.

During the summer Mr. Dearborn drove to town with fresh marketing every morning, starting early in order to get home by noon. Saturdays he took Steven with him, for that was the day he supplied his butter customers.

The first time the boy made the trip he carried Mrs. Estel's address in his pocket, which he had carefully copied from the fly-leaf of the book she had given him. Although he had not the remotest expectation of seeing her, there was a sense of companionship in the mere thought that she was in the same town with him.

He watched the lamp-posts carefully as they went along, spelling out the names of the streets. All of a sudden his heart gave a bound. They had turned a corner and were driving along Fourth Avenue. He took the slip of paper from his pocket. Yes, he was right. That was the name of the street. Then he began to watch for the numbers. 200, 300, 400; they passed on several more blocks. Mr. Dearborn drove up to the pavement and handed him the reins to hold, while he took the crock of butter into the house. Steven glanced up at the number. It was 812. Then the next one--no, the one after that--must be the place.

It was a large, elegant house, handsomer than any they had passed on the avenue. As long as it was in sight Steven strained his eyes for a backward look, but saw no one.

Week after week he watched and waited, but the blinds were always closed, and he saw no signs of life about the place. Then one day he saw a carriage stop at the gate. A lady all in black stepped out and walked slowly towards the house. Her long, heavy veil hid her face, but he thought he recognized her. He was almost sure it was Mrs. Estel. He could hardly resist the inclination to run after her and speak to her; but while he hesitated the great hall door swung back and shut her from sight. He wondered what great trouble had come to her that she should be dressed in deep black.

The hope of seeing her was the only thing about his weekly trips to town that he anticipated with any pleasure. It nearly always happened that some time during the morning while he was gone Robin got into trouble. Nobody seemed to think that the reason the child was usually so good was due largely to Steven's keeping him happily employed. He always tried to contrive something to keep him busy part of the morning; but Robin found no pleasure very long in solitary pursuits, and soon abandoned them.

Once he took a ball of yarn from the darning-basket to roll after the white kitten. He did not mean to be mischievous any more than the white kitten did, but the ball was part of Grandma Dearborn's knitting work. When she found the needles pulled out and the stitches dropped, she scolded him sharply. All her children had been grown up so long she had quite forgotten how to make allowances for things of that sort.

There was a basket of stiff, highly colored wax fruit on the marble-topped table in the parlor. Miss Barbara Dearborn had made it at boarding-school and presented it to her sister-in-law many years before. How Robin ever managed to lift off the glass case without breaking it no one ever knew. That he had done so was evident, for in every waxen red-cheeked pear and slab-sided apple were the prints of his sharp little teeth. It seemed little short of sacrilege to Mrs. Dearborn, whose own children had regarded it for years from an admiring distance, fearing to lay unlawful fingers even on the glass case that protected such a work of art.

He dropped a big white china button into the cake dough when Molly, "the help," had her back turned. It was all ready to be baked, and she unsuspectingly whisked the pan into the oven. Company came to tea, and Grandpa Dearborn happened to take the slice of cake that had the button in it. Manlike, he called everyone's attention to it, and his wife was deeply mortified.

He left the pasture gate open so that the calves got into the garden. He broke Grandpa Dearborn's shaving-mug, and spilled the lather all over himself and the lavender bows of the best pin-cushion. He untied a bag that had been left in the window to sun, to see what made it feel so soft inside. It was a bag of feathers saved from the pickings of many geese. He was considerably startled when the down flew in all directions, sticking to carpet and curtains, and making Molly much extra work on the busiest day in the week.

But the worst time was when Steven came home to find him sitting in a corner, crying bitterly, one hand tied to his chair. He had been put there for punishment. It seemed that busy morning that everything he touched made trouble for somebody. At last his exploring little fingers found the plug of the patent churn. The next minute he was a woebegone spectacle, with the fresh buttermilk pouring down on him, and spreading in creamy rivers all over the dairy floor.

These weekly trips were times of great anxiety for Steven. He never knew what fresh trouble might greet him on his return.

One day they sold out much earlier than usual. It was only eleven o'clock when they reached home. Grandma Dearborn was busy preparing dinner. Robin was not in sight. As soon as Steven had helped to unhitch the horses he ran into the house to look for him. There was no answer to his repeated calls. He searched all over the garden, thinking maybe the child was hiding from him and might jump out any moment from behind a tree.

He was beginning to feel alarmed when he saw two little bare feet slowly waving back and forth above the tall orchard grass. He slipped over the fence and noiselessly along under the apple-trees. Robin was lying on his stomach watching something on the ground so intently that sometimes the bare feet forgot to wave over his back and were held up motionless.

With one hand he was pulling along at a snail's pace a green leaf, on which a dead bumble-bee lay in state. With the other he was keeping in order a funeral procession of caterpillars. It was a motley crowd of mourners that the energetic forefinger urged along the line of march. He had evidently collected them from many quarters,--little green worms that spun down from the apple boughs overhead; big furry brown caterpillars that had hurried along the honeysuckle trellis to escape his fat fingers; spotted ones and striped ones; horned and smooth. They all straggled along, each one travelling his own gait, each one bent on going a different direction, but all kept in line by that short determined forefinger.

Steven laughed so suddenly that the little master of ceremonies jumped up and turned a startled face towards him. Then he saw that there were traces of tears on the dimpled face and one eye was swollen nearly shut.

"O Robin! what is it now?" he cried in distress. "How did you hurt yourself so dreadfully?"

"Ole bumble!" answered Robin, pointing to the leaf. "He flied in ze kitchen an' sat down in ze apple peelin's. I jus' poked him, nen he flied up and bit me. He's dead now," he added triumphantly. "Gramma killed him. See all ze cattow-pillows walkin' in ze p'cession?"

So the days slipped by in the old farmhouse. Frost nipped the gardens, and summer vanished entirely from orchard and field. The happy outdoor life was at an end, and Robin was like a caged squirrel. Steven had his hands full keeping him amused and out of the way.

"Well, my lad, isn't it about time for you to be starting to school?" Mr. Dearborn would ask occasionally. "You know I agreed to send you every winter, and I must live up to my promises."

But Steven made first one pretext and then another for delay. He knew he could not take Robin with him. He knew, too, how restless and troublesome the child would become if left at home all day.

So he could not help feeling glad when Molly went home on a visit, and Grandma Dearborn said her rheumatism was so bad that she needed his help. True, he had all sorts of tasks that he heartily despised,--washing dishes, kneading dough, sweeping and dusting,--all under the critical old lady's exacting supervision. But he preferred even that to being sent off to school alone every day.

One evening, just about sundown, he was out in the corncrib, shelling corn for the large flock of turkeys they were fattening for market. He heard Grandma Dearborn go into the barn, where her husband was milking. They were both a little deaf, and she spoke loud in order to be heard above the noise of the milk pattering into the pail. She had come out to look at one of the calves they intended selling.

"It's too bad," he heard her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set her heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such a young one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but he doesn't want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He always was closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see the little fellow go."

"Yes," was the answer, "he's a likely lad; but we're gettin' old, mother, and one is about all we can do well by. Sometimes I think maybe we've bargained for too much, tryin' to keep even _one_. So it's best to let the little one go before we get to settin' sech store by him that we can't."

A vague terror seized Steven as he realized who it was they were talking about. He lay awake a long time that night smoothing Robin's tangled curls, and crying at the thought of the motherless baby away among strangers, with no one to snuggle him up warm or sing him to sleep. Then there was another thought that wounded him deeply. Twist it whichever way he might, he could construe Mr. Dearborn's last remark to mean but one thing. They considered him a burden. How many plans he made night after night before he fell asleep! He would take Robin by the hand in the morning, and they would slip away and wander off to the woods together. They could sleep in barns at night, and he could stop at the farmhouses and do chores to pay for what they ate. Then they need not be a trouble to any one. Maybe in the summer they could find a nice dry cave to live in. Lots of people had lived that way. Then in a few years he would be big enough to have a house of his own. All sorts of improbable plans flocked into his little brain under cover of the darkness, but always vanished when the daylight came.

The next Saturday that they went to town was a cold, blustering day. They started late, taking a lunch with them, not intending to come home until the middle of the afternoon.

The wind blew a perfect gale by the time they reached town. Mr. Dearborn stopped his team in front of one of the principal groceries, saying, "Hop out, Steven, and see what they're paying for turkeys to-day."

As he sprang over the wheel an old gentleman came running around the corner after his hat, which the wind had carried away.

Steven caught it and gave it to him. He clapped it on his bald crown with a good-natured laugh. "Thanky, sonny!" he exclaimed heartily. Then he disappeared inside the grocery just as Mr. Dearborn called out, "I believe I'll hitch the horses and go in too; I'm nearly frozen."

Steven followed him into the grocery, and they stood with their hands spread out to the stove while they waited for the proprietor. He was talking to the old gentleman whose hat Steven had rescued.

He seemed to be a very particular kind of customer.

"Oh, go on! go on!" he exclaimed presently. "Wait on those other people while I make up my mind."

While Mr. Dearborn was settling the price of his turkeys, the old gentleman poked around like an inquisitive boy, thumping the pumpkins, smelling the coffee, and taking occasional picks at the raisins. Presently he stopped in front of Steven with a broad, friendly smile on his face.

"You're from the country, ain't you?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," answered Steven in astonishment.

"Came from there myself, once," he continued with a chuckle. "Law, law! You'd never think it now. Fifty years makes a heap o' difference."

He took another turn among the salt barrels and cracker boxes, then asked suddenly, "What's your name, sonny?"

"Steven," answered the boy, still more surprised.

The old fellow gave another chuckle and rubbed his hands together delightedly. "Just hear that, will you!" he exclaimed. "Why, that's my name, my very own name, sir! Well, well, well, well!"

He stared at the child until he began to feel foolish and uncomfortable. What image of his own vanished youth did that boyish face recall to the eccentric old banker?

As Mr. Dearborn turned to go Steven started after him.

"Hold on, sonny," called the old gentleman, "I want to shake hands with my namesake."

He pressed a shining half-dollar into the little mittened hand held out to him.

"That's for good luck," he said. "I was a boy myself, once. Law, law! Sometimes I wish I could have stayed one."

Steven hardly knew whether to keep it or not, or what to say. The old gentleman had resumed conversation with the proprietor and waved him off impatiently.

"I'll get Robin some candy and save all the rest till Christmas," was his first thought; but there was such a bewildering counter full of toys on one side of the confectioner's shop that he couldn't make up his mind to wait that long.

He bought some shining sticks of red and white peppermint and turned to the toys. There was a tiny sailboat with a little wooden sailor on deck; but Robin would always be dabbling in the water if he got that. A tin horse and cart caught his eye. That would make such a clatter on the bare kitchen floor.

At last he chose a gay yellow jumping-jack. All the way home he kept feeling the two little bundles in his pocket. He could not help smiling when the gables of the old house came in sight, thinking how delighted Robin would be.

He could hardly wait till the horses were put away and fed, and he changed impatiently from one foot to another, while Mr. Dearborn searched in the straw of the wagon-bed for a missing package of groceries. Then he ran to the house and into the big, warm kitchen, all out of breath.

"Robin," he called, as he laid the armful of groceries on the kitchen table, "look what Brother's brought you. Why, where's Robin?" he asked of Mrs. Dearborn, who was busy stirring something on the stove for supper. She had her back turned and did not answer.

"Where's Robin," he asked again, peering all around to see where the bright curls were hiding.

She turned around and looked at him over her spectacles. "Well, I s'pose I may's well tell you one time as another," she said reluctantly. "Rindy came for him to-day. We talked it over and thought, as long as there had to be a separation, it would be easier for you both, and save a scene, if you wasn't here to see him go. He's got a good home, and Rindy'll be kind to him."

Steven looked at her in bewilderment, then glanced around the cheerful kitchen. His slate lay on a chair where Robin had been scribbling and making pictures. The old cat that Robin had petted and played with that very morning purred comfortably under the stove. The corncob house he had built was still in the corner. Surely he could not be so very far away.

He opened the stair door and crept slowly up the steps to their little room. He could scarcely distinguish anything at first, in the dim light of the winter evening, but he saw enough to know that the little straw hat with the torn brim that he had worn in the summer time was not hanging on its peg behind the door. He looked in the washstand drawer, where his dresses were kept. It was empty. He opened the closet door. The new copper-toed shoes, kept for best, were gone, but hanging in one corner was the little checked gingham apron he had worn that morning.

Steven took it down. There was the torn place by the pocket, and the patch on the elbow. He kissed the ruffle that had been buttoned under the dimpled chin, and the little sleeves that had clung around his neck so closely that morning. Then, with it held tight in his arms, he threw himself on the bed, sobbing over and over, "It's too cruel! It's too cruel! They didn't even let me tell him good-by!"

He did not go down to supper when Mrs. Dearborn called him, so she went up after a while with a glass of milk and a doughnut.

"There, there!" she said soothingly; "don't take it so hard. Try and eat something; you'll feel better if you do."

Steven tried to obey, but every mouthful choked him. "Rindy'll be awful good to him," she said after a long pause. "She thinks he's the loveliest child she ever set eyes on, but she was afraid her husband would think he was too much of a baby if she took him home with those long curls on. She cut 'em off before they started, and I saved 'em. I knew you'd be glad to have 'em."

She lit the candle on the washstand and handed him a paper. He sat up and opened it. There lay the soft, silky curls, shining like gold in the candle-light, as they twined around his fingers. It was more than he could bear. His very lips grew white.

Mrs. Dearborn was almost frightened. She could not understand how a child's grief could be so deep and passionate.

He drew them fondly over his wet cheeks, and pressed them against his quivering lips. Then laying his face down on them, he cried till he could cry no longer, and sleep came to his relief.

Next morning, when Steven pulled the window curtain aside, he seemed to be looking out on another world. The first snow of the winter covered every familiar object, and he thought, in his childish way, that last night's experience had altered his life as the snowdrifts had changed the landscape.

He ate his breakfast and did up the morning chores mechanically. He seemed to be in a dream, and wondered dully to himself why he did not cry when he felt so bad.

When the work was all done he stood idly looking out of the window. He wanted to get away from the house where everything he saw made his heart ache with the suggestion of Robin.

"I believe I'd like to go to church to-day," he said in a listless tone.

"Yes, I'd go if I were you," assented Mr. Dearborn readily. "Mother and me'll have to stay by the fire to-day, but I've no doubt it'll chirk you up a bit to get outdoors a spell."

He started off, plodding through the deep snow.

"Takes it easier than I thought he would," said Mr. Dearborn. "Well, troubles never set very hard on young shoulders. He'll get over it in a little while."

As Steven emerged from the lane into the big road he saw a sleigh coming towards him, driven by the doctor's son. As it drew nearer a sudden thought came to him like an inspiration.

"O Harvey!" he cried, running forward. "Will you take me with you as far as Simpson's?"

"Why, yes, I guess so," answered the boy good-naturedly.

He was not surprised at the request, knowing that Mrs. Dearborn and Mrs. Simpson were sisters, and supposing that Steven had been sent on some errand.

It was three miles to the Simpson place, but they seemed to have reached it in as many minutes. Harvey turned off towards his own home, while Steven climbed out and hurried along the public road.

"Half-way there!" he said to himself. He was going to town to find Mrs. Estel.

He was a long time on the way. A piercing wind began to blow, and a blinding snow-storm beat in his face. He was numb with cold, hungry, and nearly exhausted. But he thought of little Robin fifteen miles away, crying at the strange faces around him; and for his sake he stumbled bravely on.