Quicksilver Part 21

"You do!" said the doctor excitedly.

"Yes. He is just the wild little savage for you to reclaim."

"But--but a little too bad, Helen?"

"No, papa, I think not; and I think you are not justified in saying bad.

I believe he is a very good boy."

"You do?"

"Yes; full of mischief as a boy can be, but very, very affectionate."

"Yes. I think he is," a.s.sented the doctor.

"I think he will be very teachable."

"Humph!"

"And it was plain to see that he was touched to the heart with grief at our anger."

"Or is it all his artfulness!"

"Oh no, papa! Certainly not that. The boy is frank and affectionate as can be."

"Then you think it is possible to make a gentleman of him?"

"If it is possible of any boy whom you could get from the Union, papa."

"And you really think he is frank and tender-hearted?"

Helen pointed to the boy's untouched plate.

"And you would not exchange him for something a little more tractable?"

"I don't think you could. I really begin to like the mischievous little fellow, and I believe that in a very short time we should see a great change."

"You do?"

"Yes; but of course we must be prepared for a great many more outbreaks of this kind."

"Unless I stop them."

"No, no, you must not stop them," said Helen quietly. "These little ebullitions must not be suppressed in that way--I mean with undue severity."

"Then you really would not take--I mean send him back?"

"No," said Helen. "I think, perhaps, I could help you in all this."

"My dear Helen," cried the doctor eagerly. "My dear child, you don't know how pleased you make me. I felt that for your sake I must take him back."

"For my sake?" exclaimed Helen.

"Yes; that it was too bad to expose you to the petty annoyances and troubles likely to come from keeping him. But if you feel that you could put up with it till we have tamed him down--"

Helen rose from her chair, and went behind her father's, to lay her hands upon his shoulders, when he took them in his, and crossed them upon his breast, so as to draw her face down over his shoulder.

"My dear father," she said, as she laid her cheek against his, "I don't know--I cannot explain, but this boy seems to have won his way with me very strangely, and I should be deeply grieved if you sent him away."

"My dear Helen, you've taken a load off my mind. There, go and fetch the poor fellow down. He wanted his dinner two hours ago, and he must be starved."

Helen kissed her father's forehead, and went quietly up to Dexter's room, listened for a few moments, heard a low sob, and then, softly turning the handle of the door, she entered, to stand there, quite taken aback.

The boy was crouched in a heap on the floor, sobbing silently, and with his breast heaving with the agony of spirit he suffered.

For that she was prepared, but the tears rose in her eyes as she grasped another fact. There, neatly folded and arranged, just as the Union teaching had prompted him, were the clothes the boy had worn that day, even to the boots placed under the chair, upon which they lay, while the boy had taken out and dressed himself again in his old workhouse livery, his cap lying on the floor by his side.

Helen crossed to him softly, bent over him, and laid her little white hand upon his head.

The boy sprang to his feet as if he had felt a blow, and stood before her with one arm laid across his eyes, as, in shame for his tears, he bent his head.

"Dexter," she said again, "what are you going to do?"

"Going back again," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I'm such a bad un. They always said I was."

"And is that the way to make yourself better?"

"I can't help it," he said, half defiantly. "It's no use to try, and I'm going back."

"To grieve me, and make me sorry that I have been mistaken?"

"Yes," he said huskily, and with his arm still across his eyes. "I'm going back, and old Sibery may cut me to pieces," he added pa.s.sionately.

"I don't care."

"Look up at me, Dexter," said Helen gently, as she laid her hand upon the boy's arm. "Tell me," she continued, "which will you do?--go back, or try to be a good boy, and do what you know I wish you to do, and stay!"

He let her arm fall, gazed wildly in her eyes, and then caught her hand and dropped upon his knees, sobbing pa.s.sionately.

"I will try; I will try," he cried, as soon as he could speak. "Take me down to him, and let him cane me, and I won't cry out a bit. I'll take it all like Bill Jones does, and never make a sound, but don't, don't send me away."

Helen Grayson softly sank upon her knees beside the boy, and took him in her arms to kiss him once upon the forehead.

"There, Dexter," she said gently, as she rose. "Now bathe your eyes, dress yourself again, and come downstairs to me in the dining-room, as quickly as you can."

Helen went to her own room for a few moments to bathe her own eyes, and wonder how it was that she should be so much moved, and in so short a time.

The doctor was anxiously awaiting her return.

"Well!" he said; "where is the young scamp!"