“A poor wayfaring man of grief
    Hath often crossed me on my way,
  And sued so humbly for relief
    That I could never answer nay.”

And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from blight.  The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams’s hut.  He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the low-roofed garret.  His steaming clothes had been taken off, a dry shirt had been given him, and he had Joe for a bedfellow.

“Hug him tight, Joey dear!” said the old woman, as she carried away the candle.  “Snug up close, and keep him warm!”

“I will!” cried Joe, as affectionate as he was roguish; and Fessenden’s never slept better than he did that night, with the tempest singing his lullaby, and the arms of the loving negro boy about him.

In the morning he found his clothes ready to put on.  They had been carefully dried; and the old woman had got up early and taken a few needful stitches in them.

“It’s Sunday, granny,” Creshy reminded her, to see what she would say.

“A’n’t no use lett’n’ sich holes as these ’ere go, if ’t is Sunday!” replied the old woman.  “Hope I never sh’ll ketch you a doin’ nuffin’ wus!  A’n’t we told to help our neighbor’s sheep out o’ the ditch on the Lord’s day?  An’ which is mos’ consequence, I’d like to know, the neighbor’s sheep, or the neighbor hisself?”

“But his clothes a’n’t him,” said Creshy.

“S’pose I do’no’ that?  But what’s a sheep for, if ’t a’n’t for its wool to make the clo’es?  Then, to look arter the sheep that makes the clo’es, and not look arter the clo’es arter they’re made, that’s a mis’ble notion!”

“But you can mend the clothes any day.”

“Could I mend ’em yis’day, when I didn’t have ’em to mend? or las’ night, when they was wringin’ wet?  Le’ me alone, now, with your nonsense!”

“But you can mend them to-morrow,” said the mischievous girl, delighted to puzzle her grandmother.

“And let that poor lorn chile go in rags over Sunday, freezin’ cold weather like this?  Guess I a’n’t so onfeelin,’—­an’ you a’n’t nuther, for all you like to tease your ole granny so!  Bless the chile, seems to me he’s jest gwine to bring us good luck.  I feel as though the Angel of the Lord did ra’ly come into the house with him las’ night!  Wish I had somefin’ ra’l good for him for his breakfas’ now!  He’ll be dreffle hungry, that’s sartin.  Make a rousin’ good big Johnny-cake, mammy; and, Creshy, you stop botherin’, and slice up them ’ere taters for fryin’.”

Soon the odor of the cooking stole up into the garret.  Fessenden’s snuffed it with delighted senses.  The feeling of his garments dry and whole pleased him mightily.  He heard the call to breakfast; and laughing and rubbing his eyes, he followed Joe down the dark, uncertain footing of the stairs.