As Mr. Leuba spoke, he apologized to the gentlemen for leaving, and turned back into the rear of the shop. Faint, and trembling so that he could scarcely stand, his face of a deadly whiteness, the boy followed.
"David," said Mr. Leuba – in his whole life he had never spoken so kindly; perhaps his heart had been touched by some belated feeling, as he had studied the boy's face before the picture in the museum, and certainly it had been singularly opened by his good-fortune – "David," he said, "I promised when I got rich enough I'd give Tom a new violin, and give you his old one. Well, I gave him a new one to-day; so here's yours," and going to a corner of the room, he took up the box, brought it back, and would have laid it on the boy's arm, only there was no arm extended to receive it.
"Take it! It's yours!"
"Oh, Mr. Leuba!"
It was all he could say. He had expected to be charged with stealing the quarter, and instead there was held out to him the one treasure in the world – the violin of which he had dreamed so long, for which he had served so faithfully.
"Oh, Mr. Leuba!"
There was a pitiful note in the cry, but the dealer was not the man to hear it, or to notice the look of angelic contrition on the upturned face. He merely took the lad's arm, bent it around the violin, patted the ragged cap, and said, a little impatiently:
"Come, come! they're waiting for me at the door. To-morrow you can come down and run some more errands for me," and he led the way to the front of the shop and resumed his conversation.
Slowly along the dark street the lad toiled homeward with his treasure. At any other time he would have sat down on the first curb-stone, opened the box, and in ecstatic joy have lifted out that peerless instrument; or he would have sped home with it to his mother, flying along on his one crutch as if on the winds of heaven. But now he could not look at it, and something clogged his gait so that he loitered and faltered and sometimes stood still irresolute.
But at last he approached the log-cabin which was his home. A rude fence enclosed the yard, and inside this fence there grew a hedge of lilacs. When he was within a few feet of the gate he paused, and did what he had never done before – he put his face close to the panels of the fence, and with a look of guilt and sorrow peeped through the lilacs at the face of his mother, who was sitting in the light of the open door-way.
She was thinking of him. He knew that by the patient sweetness of her smile. All the heart went out of him at the sight, and hurrying forward, he put the violin down at her feet, and threw his arms around her neck, and buried his head on her bosom.
After he had made his confession, a restless and feverish night he had of it, often springing up from his troubled dreams and calling to her in the darkness. But the next morning he insisted upon getting up for a while.
Towards the afternoon he grew worse again, and took to his bed, the yellow head tossing to and fro, the eyes bright and restless, and his face burning. At length he looked up and said to his mother, in the manner of one who forms a difficult resolution: "Send for the parson. Tell him I am sick and want to see him."
It was this summons that the widow Spurlock had delivered on the Sunday afternoon when the parson had quitted the house with such a cry of distress. He had not so much as thought of the boy since the Friday morning previous.
"How is it possible," he exclaimed, as he hurried on – "how is it possible that I could have forgotten him?"
The boy's mother met him outside the house and drew him into an adjoining room, silently, for her tears were falling. He sank into the first chair.
"Is he so ill?" he asked, under his trembling breath.
"I'm afraid he's going to be very ill. And to see him in so much trouble – "
"What is the matter? In God's name, has anything happened to him?"
She turned her face away to hide her grief. "He said he would tell you himself. Oh, if I've been too hard with him! But I did it for the best. I didn't know until the doctor came that he was going to be ill, or I would have waited. Do anything you can to quiet him – anything he should ask you to do," she implored, and pointed towards the door of the room in which the boy lay.
Conscience-stricken and speechless, the parson opened it and entered.
The small white bed stood against the wall beneath an open window, and one bright-headed sunflower, growing against the house outside, leaned in and fixed its kind face anxiously upon the sufferer's.
The figure of the boy was stretched along the edge of the bed, his cheek on one hand and his eyes turned steadfastly towards the middle of the room, where, on a table, the violin lay exposed to view.
He looked quickly towards the door as the parson entered, and an expression of relief passed over his face.
"Why, David," said the parson, chidingly, and crossing to the bed with a bright smile. "Sick? This will never do;" and he sat down, imprisoning one of the burning palms in his own.
The boy said nothing, but looked at him searchingly, as though needing to lay aside masks and disguises and penetrate at once to the bottom truth. Then he asked, "Are you mad at me?"
"My poor boy!" said the parson, his lips trembling a little as he tightened his pressure – "my poor boy! why should I be mad at you?"
"You never could do anything with me."
"Never mind that now," said the parson, soothingly, but adding, with bitterness, "it was all my fault – all my fault."
"It wasn't your fault," said the boy. "It was mine."
A change had come over him in his treatment of the parson. Shyness had disappeared, as is apt to be the case with the sick.
"I want to ask you something," he added, confidentially.
"Anything – anything! Ask me anything!"
"Do you remember the wax figures?"
"Oh yes, I remember them very well," said the parson, quickly, uneasily.
"I wanted to see 'em, and I didn't have any money, and I stole a quarter from Mr. Leuba."
Despite himself a cry escaped the parson's lips, and dropping the boy's hand, he started from his chair and walked rapidly to and fro across the room, with the fangs of remorse fixed deep in his conscience.
"Why didn't you come to me?" he asked at length, in a tone of helpless entreaty. "Why didn't you come to me? Oh, if you had only come to me!"
"I did come to you," replied the boy.
"When?" asked the parson, coming back to the bedside.
"About three o'clock yesterday."
About three o'clock yesterday! And what was he doing at that time? He bent his head over to his very knees, hiding his face in his hands.
"But why didn't you let me know it? Why didn't you come in?"
"Mrs. Spurlock told me you were at work on a sermon."
"God forgive me!" murmured the parson, with a groan.
"I thought you'd lend me a quarter," said the boy, simply. "You took the other boys, and you told me I must be certain to go. I thought you'd lend me a quarter till I could pay you back."
"Oh, David!" cried the parson, getting down on his knees by the bedside, and putting his arms around the boy's neck, "I would have lent you – I would have given you – anything I have in this poor world!"
The boy threw his arms around the parson's neck and clasped him close. "Forgive me!"
"Oh, boy! boy! can you forgive me?" Sobs stifled the parson's utterance, and he went to a window on the opposite side of the room.
When he turned his face inward again, he saw the boy's gaze fixed once more intently upon the violin.
"There's something I want you to do for me," he said. "Mr. Leuba gave me a violin last night, and mamma says I ought to sell it and pay him back. Mamma says it will