"Yes," responded the Colonel hilariously; "'ve got me safe 'nuff; pick me up ad' car' me. If man won't go out, tote 'm out."

They carried him into his rooms and laid him down, and more than one among them turned curiously to the boy as he stood near the bed looking down at the dishevelled, incoherent, gibbering object upon it.

"Damn him," he said in a sudden outburst; "damn him."

"Hello, youngster," said one of the party, "that's not the thing exactly."

"Go to the devil," roared the lad, livid with wrath and shame. "Do you think I'll not say what I please? A nice one he is for a fellow to have for a father--to be tied to and dragged about by--drinking himself mad and disgracing himself after his palaver and sentiment and playing the gentleman. He ought to be a gentleman--he's got a gentleman's name, and"--choking a little--"all the rest of it. I hate him! He makes me sick. I wish he was dead. He's a liar and a bully and a fool. I'd kill him if he wasn't my father. I should like to kill him for _being_ my father!"

Suddenly his voice faltered and his face turned white. He walked to the other side of the room, turning his back to them all, and, flinging himself into a chair, dropped his curly head on his arm on the window-sill and sobbed aloud with a weakness and broken-down fury pitiful to see.

The Colonel burst into a frantic shriek of laughter.

"Queer little devil," he said. "Prou' lit'l devil! Like's moth'--don'

like it. Moth' used er cry. _She_ didn't like it."

CHAPTER X

As the Cross-roads had regarded Tom as a piece of personal property to be proud of, so it fell into the habit of regarding his _protegee_. The romance of her history was considered to confer distinction upon the vicinity, and Tom's affection for her was approved of as a sentiment worthy of the largeness of the Cross-roads nature.

"They kinder set one anuther off," it was frequently remarked, "her a-bein' so little and him so big, an' both of 'em stickin' to each other so clost. Lordy! 'tain't no use a-tryin' to part 'em. Sheby, she ain't a-goin' nowhar 'thout Tom, an' Tom, he h'aint a-goin' nowhars 'thout Sheby!"

When the child was five years old the changes which had taken place in the store were followed by still greater changes in the house. Up to her fifth birthday the experiences had balanced themselves between the store and the three back rooms with their bare floors and rough walls. She had had her corner, her small chair behind the counter or near the stove, and there she had amused herself with her playthings through long or short days, and in the evening Tom had taken her upon his shoulder and carried her back to the house, as it was called, leaving his careless, roystering gaiety behind him locked up in the store, ready to be resumed for the edification of his customers the next morning.

"He don't hev no pore folkses ways wid dat chile," said Mornin once to Mrs. Doty; "he don't never speak to her no other then gen'leman way. He's a-raisin' her to be fitten fur de highes'. He's mighty keerful ob her way ob speakin' an' settin' to de table. Mornin's got to stand 'hind her cheer an' wait on her hersel'; an' sence she was big 'nuff to set dar, she's had a silver fork an' spoon an' napkin-ring same's de President himself. Ah; he's a-raisin' her keerful, is Mars D'Willerby."

"Waal," said Mrs. Doty, "ef 'twarn't Tom D'Willerby, I shed say it was a puttin' on airs; but thar ain't no airs 'bout Tom D'Willerby."

From the first Mr. Stamps's interest in Tom's _protegee_ had been unfailing though quiet. When he came into the store, which he did some three times a week, it was his habit to fix his small, pale eyes upon her and follow her movements stealthily but with unflagging watchfulness.

Occasionally this occupation so absorbed him that when she moved to her small corner behind the counter, vaguely oppressed by his surveillance, he sauntered across the room and took his seat upon the counter itself, persisting in his mild, furtive gaze, until it became too much for her and she sought refuge at Tom's knee.

"He looks at me," she burst out distressedly on one such day. "Don't let him look at me."

Tom gave a start and turned round, and Mr. Stamps gave a start also, at once mildly recovering himself.

"Leave her alone," said Tom, "what are you lookin' at her for?"

Mr. Stamps smiled.

"Thar's no law agin it, Tom," he replied. "An' she's wuth a lookin' at.

She's that kind, an' it'll grow on her. Ten year from now thar ain't no law es 'ed keep 'em from lookin' at her, 'thout it was made an' passed in Congrist. She'll hev to git reckonciled to a-bein' looked at."

"Leave her alone," repeated Tom, quite fiercely. "I'll not have her troubled."

"I didn't go to trouble her, Tom," said Mr. Stamps, softly; and he slipped down from the counter and sidled out of the store and went home.

With Mr. Stamps Sheba always connected her first knowledge of the fact that her protector's temper could be disturbed. She had never seen him angry until she saw Mr. Stamps rouse him to wrath on the eventful fifth birthday, from which the first exciting events of her life dated themselves. Up to that time she had seen only in his great strength and broad build a power to protect and shield her own fragility and smallness from harm or fear. When he took her in his huge arms and held her at what seemed to be an incredible height from the ordinary platform of existence, she had only felt the cautious tenderness of his touch and recognised her own safety, and it had never occurred to her that his tremendous voice, which was so strong and deep by nature, that it might have been a terrible one if he had chosen to make it so, could express any other feeling than kindliness in its cheery roar.

But on this fifth birthday Tom presented himself to her childish mind in a new light.

She had awakened early to find him standing at her small bedside and a new doll lying in her arms. It was a bigger doll than she had ever owned before, and so gaily dressed, that in her first rapture her breath quite forsook her. When she recovered it, she scrambled up, holding her new possession in one arm and clung with the other around Tom's neck.

"Oh, the lovely, lovely doll!" she cried, and then hid her face on his shoulder.

"Hallo," said Tom, hugging her, "what is she hiding her eyes for?"

She nestled closer to him with a little sob of loving delight.

"Because--because of the doll," she answered, bewildered by her own little demonstration and yet perfect in her confidence that he would understand her.

"Well," said Tom, cheerfully, "that's a queer thing, ain't it? Look here, did you know it was your birthday? Five years old to-day--think of that."

He sat down and settled her in her usual place on his knee, her doll in her arms.

"To think," he said, "of her setting up a birthday on purpose to be five years old and have a doll given her. That's a nice business, ain't it?"

After they had breakfasted together in state, the doll was carried into the store to be played with there. It was a wet day, and, the air being chilled by a heavy mountain rain, a small fire was burning in the stove, and by this fire the two settled themselves to enjoy the morning together, the weather precluding the possibility of their being disturbed by many customers. But in the height of their quiet enjoyment they were broken in upon by the sound of horse's hoofs splashing in the mud outside and Mr. Stamps's hat appeared above the window-sill.

It was Sheba who saw it first, and in the strength of her desire to avoid the wearer, she formed a desperate plan. She rose so quietly that Tom, who was reading a paper, did not hear her, and, having risen, drew her small chair behind the counter in the hope that, finding her place vacant, the visitor would not suspect her presence.

In this she was not disappointed. Having brushed the mud from his feet on the porch, Mr. Stamps appeared at the doorway, and, after his usual precautionary glance about him, made his way to the stove. His manner was at once propitiatory and friendly. He drew up a chair and put his wet feet on the stove, where they kept up a comfortable hissing sound as they dried.

"Howdy, Tom," he said, "howdy?" And from her hiding-place Sheba saw him rubbing his legs from the knee downwards as he said it, with an air of solid enjoyment which suggested that he was congratulating himself upon something he had in his mind.

"Morning," responded Tom.

Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs again quite luxuriously.

"You're a lookin' well, Tom," he remarked. "Lord, yes, ye're a lookin'

powerful well."

Tom laid his paper down and folded it on his knee.

"Lookin' well, am I?" he answered. "Well, I'm a delicate weakly sort of fellow in general, I am, and it's encouraging to hear that I'm looking well."

Mr. Stamps laughed rather spasmodically.

"I wouldn't be agin bein' the same kind o' weakly myself," he said, "nor the same kind o' delycate. You're a powerfle hansum man, Tom."

"Yes," replied Tom, drily, "I'm a handsome man. That's what carried me along this far. It's what I've always had to rely on--that and a knock-down intellect."

Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs with his air of luxury again.

"Folks is fond o' sayin' beauty ain't but skin deep," he said; "but I wouldn't hev it no deeper myself--bein' so that it kivers. An', talkin'

o' beauty, she's one--Lord, yes. She's one."