CHAPTER III.
AN ASTOUNDING PROPOSITION.
Deacon Cornhill listened with open-mouthed wonder to the rapid account of his youthful friend, unable to speak until he had concluded, when he managed to say:
“I don’t know what is proper to say to you, boy. You have done me a sarvice I shall never forget, if I live to be as old as Methusaleh; I shan’t, I vum I shan’t. I want to pay for it. Who’d thought them slick-seeming men were sich cutthroats?”
“Black your boots and make ’em shine? I ain’t no time to waste in perlaver. They need it. Time’s money, and bizness must be ’tended to afore pleasure.”
“Go ahead,” consented the deacon, putting out his right foot for the bootblack to begin work. Then, as the boy went about his task in a manner which showed that he had thoroughly mastered it, he asked:
“What’s your name, youngster?”
“I’m called Little Hickory,” spitting on the blacking and beginning to rub vigorously.
“You don’t say? Can’t be your regular Scripture name?”
“’Bout as near Scripter as an old man like me has ever got, mister. Excuse me, Deacon Cornhill.”
“Bless me, how did you know my name?”
“Overheard you give it to the sharper. But, oh, my! Ain’t your underpinners in bad shape! Can’t get a Broadway shine on ’em to save my reputation!”
“You ain’t told me your name yet,” persisted Deacon Cornhill, who had taken a strong liking for the strange youth. “And why do you mock at fate by calling yourself old? It’s a sin and a shame, of which you must repent some time in sackcloth and ashes.”
“I know as leetle of your sackcloth and ashes as you know of me, mister—I mean, Deacon Cornhill. Reckon I was older when I was born ’n many are when they die. I thought it proper for me to give you the name that b’longs to me where you found me. Mother calls me Rob.”
“That sounds more Christian-like. Robert is a good old family name. What name did your father have?”
“I couldn’t begin to ’numerate ’em, mis—I mean, deacon. I reckon he’s had a good round dozen, first and last.”
“Sho! but you don’t mean it! Where is he?”
“Dunno.”
“What! Don’t know where your father is? How long have you lived this harum-scarum life?”
“As long as I can remember. Push that foot out a leetle furder.”
“And you like it?”
“Don’t know any other, deacon.”
The good man from Basinburg groaned, saying after a minute:
“It’s too bad—too bad! You seem like a proper sort of a boy, with the right kind of management.”
“I shouldn’t want to bank on your judgment, squire—I mean deacon—seeing the way you let them sharpers pull the wool over your eyes.”
Deacon Cornhill relapsed into silence, while he watched the swift, dexterous movements of the cheerful bootblack, who began to sing a snatch of song. He was one of those broad-minded, whole-souled men who never see another in lowly circumstances without wanting to lift him up. The frank honesty of Little Hickory, as the boy persisted in being known, had won his confidence, and to have done that was to insure a friendship not to be swerved from its purpose. A new light came over his florid countenance, as he pondered, and forgetting him at work on his boot, he sprang suddenly to his feet, exclaiming:
“I’ll do it!”
Though taken completely by surprise at this frantic action, Little Hickory caught him by the wrist, and with the strength one would not have looked for in the youthful arm, he flung him back upon the bench, crying sharply:
“No, you don’t, till I get that other schooner in proper trim. You’d look well, wouldn’t you, with ’em in such shape?”
“Forgive me, my son.”
“‘My son!’ Forsooth, as the play-actor says: None of your soft solder on me. All I ask is for you to keep still till I can put the polish on this other brogan.”
It is needless to say that Deacon Cornhill obeyed, and not until the young workman was done did he say:
“I don’t exactly get the hang of you, my dear boy——”
“Hold right on there, deacon. If you have got anything to say, leave off the finery, and cut the garment plain. I ain’t much on soap, but I’m honest clear through. Go ahead with your tongue notions.”
“Rob,” resumed the other, recalling the fact that the boy had given at least so much of a name, “I ain’t going to perlaver. I want you to go hum with me.”
Little Hickory showed his surprise without speaking.
“I’m in dead ’arnest. Mandy and I have talked this all over time and again. We ain’t got chick nor child, and she was saying only yesterday how cheering it would be to have a boy in the house. I ain’t rich as some, but I’m comfortably fixed, and what I’ve got shall be yours, as soon as I’m through with it. You shall have my name, too, and be Elihu Cornhill, Jr.”
Rob still was too much surprised to speak, which allowed Deacon Cornhill to continue:
“It would be the making of you, Rob. It would get you away from the wickedness of this sinful city, and——”
“And away from my bizness.”
“Luddy me, you don’t call this blackin’ folks’ shoes and boots bizness!”
“By it I get my living, sir,” said the youthful speaker, with a pride one in better circumstances might have failed to display.
“But you would have a better and more honorable——”
“Hold right on, Deacon Cornhill! I reckon honesty is honorable anywhere. I should be like a fish out of water up there in the wilderness.”
“But out of this wilderness of wickedness. There you could go to Sunday school, and be up in society. You have got the making of a smart boy in you. You have done me a great help, and I have taken a fancy to you. I’ll get you a new suit of clothes, and you’ll look slick as a mouse. Then, as soon as I can finish my bizness, we’ll go hum and s’prise Mandy. Hum! How does that sound to you, Rob?”
If at first Little Hickory had thought that Deacon Cornhill was not in earnest, he could see now that he was intensely determined in what he said. But he had no idea of accepting an offer made with so much abruptness, so he said:
“If I could leave my bizness, which I ain’t owned up to yet, I couldn’t leave my mother.”
Deacon Cornhill showed by his looks that this was a contingency he had not taken into account.
“So your mother is living, Rob?”
“She was when I left home this morning.”
“She can come along, too. She will be help for Mandy. I vow, it’ll be all the better for you to have her with us.”
“And my friends?” asked Rob, showing by his manner that he was becoming interested.
Before Deacon Cornhill could reply, the sound of many feet was heard entering the place, and a body of men quickly appeared on the scene. The foremost was a burly, bewhiskered fellow, who at sight of our couple cried exultantly:
“Here he is, boys! Nab him!”