e that you are an honest boy I'll sew them back
for you myself."

As she spoke she rose, divided the figs evenly between the two baskets,
and handed one to Crow.

If there ever was a serious little black boy on God's beautiful earth it
was little Solomon Crow as he balanced his basket of figs on his head
that day and went slowly down the garden walk and out the great front
gate.

The next few weeks were not without trial to the boy. Old Mr. Cary
continued very stern, even following him daily to the _banquette_, as if
he dare not trust him to go out alone. And when he closed the iron gate
after him he would say in a tone that was awfully solemn:

"Good-mornin', sir!"

That was all.

Little Crow dreaded that walk to the gate more than all the rest of the
ordeal. And yet, in a way, it gave him courage. He was at least worth
while, and with time and patience he would win back the lost faith of
the friends who were kind to him even while they could not trust him.
They were, indeed, kind and generous in many ways, both to him and his
unworthy mother.

Fig-time was soon nearly over, and, of course, Crow expected a
dismissal; but it was Mr. Cary himself who set these fears at rest by
proposing to him to come daily to blacken his boots and to keep the
garden-walk in order for regular wages.

"But," he warned him, in closing, "don't you show your face here with a
pocket on you. If your heavy pants have any in 'em, rip 'em out." And
then he added, severely: "You've been a very bad boy."

"Yassir," answered Crow, "I know I is. I been a heap wusser boy'n you
knowed I was, too."

"What's that you say, sir?"

Crow repeated it. And then he added, for full confession:

"I picked green figs heap o' days, and kivered 'em up wid ripe ones, an'
sol' 'em to a white 'oman fur perserves." There was something desperate
in the way he blurted it all out.

"The dickens you did! And what are you telling me for?"

He eyed the boy keenly as he put the question.

At this Crow fairly wailed aloud: "'Caze I ain't gwine do it no mo'."
And throwing his arms against the door-frame he buried his face in them,
and he sobbed as if his little heart would break.

For a moment old Mr. Cary seemed to have lost his voice, and then he
said, in a voice quite new to Crow:

"I don't believe you will, sir--I don't believe you will." And in a
minute he said, still speaking gently: "Come here, boy."

Still weeping aloud, Crow obeyed.

"Tut, tut!