ay awake, and
cried an hour; then he went to sleep, and slept as soundly as Willy Rose
in his snug little bedroom leading out of his mother's room. Miss Elvira
and Mrs. Rose locked their doors that night, through distrust of that
little boy down-stairs who came of a thieving family. Miss Elvira put
her gold watch and her breastpin and her pocket-book, with seventeen
dollars in it, under the feather-bed; and Mrs. Rose carried the silver
teaspoons up-stairs, and hid them under hers. The Dickey boy was not
supposed to know they were in the house--the pewter ones had been used
for supper--but that did not signify; she thought it best to be on the
safe side. She kept the silver spoons under the feather-bed for many a
day, and they all ate with the pewter ones; but finally suspicion was
allayed if not destroyed. The Dickey boy had shown himself trustworthy
in several instances. Once he was sent on a test errand to the store,
and came home promptly with the right change. The silver spoons
glittered in the spoon-holder on the table, and Miss Elvira wore her
gold watch and her gold breastpin.

"I begin to take a good deal more stock in that boy," Mrs. Rose told her
brother Hiram.

"He ain't very lively, but he works real smart; he ain't saucy, and I
ain't known of his layin' hands on a thing."

But the Dickey boy, although he had won some confidence and good
opinions, was, as Mrs. Rose said, not very lively. His face, as he did
his little tasks, was as sober and serious as an old man's. Everybody
was kind to him, but this poor little alien felt like a chimney-sweep in
a queen's palace. Mrs. Rose, to a Dickey boy, was almost as impressive
as a queen. He watched with admiration and awe this handsome, energetic
woman moving about the house in her wide skirts. He was overcome with
the magnificence of Miss Elvira's afternoon silk, and gold watch; and
dainty little Willy Rose seemed to him like a small prince. Either the
Dickey boy, born in a republican country, had the original instincts of
the peasantry in him, and himself defined his place so clearly that it
made him unhappy, or his patrons did it for him. Mrs. Rose and Miss
Elvira tried to treat him as well as they treated Willy. They dressed
him in Willy's old clothes; they gave him just as much to eat; when
autumn came he was sent to school as warmly clad and as well provided
with luncheon; but they could never forget that he was a Dickey boy. He
seemed, in truth, to them lik