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Updated: May 3, 2025
And you will have to nurse the baby yourself, and do the work for many a day." The old doctor's voice was stern as he finished, for he had known Dick's father and mother in their own tidy little home, and he hated Mrs. Fowley's drinking habits, and her neglect of the children, and unkindness to the orphan boy.
Dick took out his pocket Bible to read his chapter with a glad feeling of security. He would never need to hide it from the Fowley's again. "Read it out, me boy, read it. There's good words in it, whatever the praste may say."
Another good payment for a small piece of hard work! Dick looked down triumphantly at the coin, but his face changed in a moment. This was no sixpence, such as he had often been entrusted with on Mrs. Fowley's errands, but a coin of shining yellow gold.
And Paddy, who seemed to know all about dogs and their doings, suggested that he should be taught tricks "because of his knowingness." And teaching him to beg and sing and shake hands, filled many a merry half-hour that autumn, and the Fowley's would scarcely have known Dick, if they had seen him there.
Dick held up a shabby foot, and Paddy sniffed in disdain. Two of the Fowley's had worn the boots in turn, and they were now falling apart from stress of wear and weather. "They're no good for the road, me boy. We'll see." And soon a supper of herrings and bread and butter and tea smoked invitingly on the table, and when this had been disposed of Paddy went out, locking the door.
"All saved from the paws and the jaws of the 'Brown Bear, that squeezes all the comfort out of so many homes in Venley. If only I'd got all the money that have gone out of my pocket that way, I shouldn't need to stoke for a living now. But if God will give me health and work I shan't come to the workhouse yet awhile! That's where the Fowley's are shaping for.
Home lessons had small chance in Mrs. Fowley's presence, and the frequent excuses for keeping him at home had sadly interfered with his getting on, but in school no boy was happier than he. In the playground there might be taunts about his shabby clothes, and rough usage from the Fowley boys, that were hard to bear patiently. And he did not always succeed in keeping his temper down.
"I've got slops and overalls just like the other men, to work in, and I'm going to a night school and a technical class, and Mr. Dainton has lent me a big book about engines, with pictures all through. "I should like to know how baby Lily is at Mrs. Fowley's, if you could find out, and whether they were vexed at my running away. But please don't tell them I am here.
All his experiences at the Fowley's had not made him like to wear other people's clothes. But the boots were such a good fit. And the jacket would keep him so warm and be such a grand bed quilt if he and Pat had to sleep out. But how could he take so much from Paddy?
Folded small within it were the torn remains of a once handsome crimson and blue silk handkerchief, the only memento of his father he possessed. Somehow it had escaped the utter destruction that visited all good things in Mrs. Fowley's keeping, and Dick treasured it more than words could tell.
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