CHAPTER XIII

DICKEY’S VISIT

  Kind hearts are more than coronets.
          —­Tennyson.

Plainly furnished and small was the house to which I was taken by Miss Katharine to stay during Polly’s absence at her grandmother’s in the country.  But though it was destitute of fine furnishings, it was the abode of peace and love, and its lowly roof sheltered noble and kindly hearts.  The two sisters lived there alone, supported mainly by Katharine’s earnings in the millinery store, though occasionally the sister, who was lame, added something to their little income by making paper flowers and other articles of bright tissues.  It was her business to keep the house while Miss Katharine was at the shop, and very long and lonely the hours must have seemed to her while her sister was away.

The first day I was there a boy whom she addressed as John Charles came to the house.  Apparently he had been carefully trained, for he raised his cap when the lame girl opened the door to his knock.  His manners were fine, for he remained standing after he entered until she had first seated herself, as if to say, “A gentleman will not sit while a lady stands.”

He had come to inquire if she wished to buy some cooking apples.

“They are very nice,” said John Charles briskly, quite as if he were an old salesman.  “No mashed or decayed ones among them.”

“I have been wanting some apples,” said Eliza.  “If I knew what yours were like I might buy some.”

“I have a few here to show,” and John Charles drew from a small paper sack one or two bright rosy apples.  “There, try one,” he said.  “You will find them nice and juicy and sour enough to cook quickly.”

Eliza bit into one and expressed her approval of the fruit.  “They will make delicious apple-sauce, I’m sure,” she said.  After inquiring the price she told the young merchant he might carry in a peck.

With a business-like flourish John Charles took a small note-book and pencil from his pocket and wrote something at the top of the leaf.

“I’m not delivering now,” he said as he returned the note-book to his pocket.  “I’m only taking orders; but I’ll have your apples here in an hour.”

Eliza bit her lip to keep back a smile.  A boy in knee pants transacting business like a grown man, appeared quite amusing to her.

“Oh, I see,” she said.  “You take orders for your goods.  You don’t sell from door to door.”

“No, indeed!” answered John Charles with a lofty air.  “That’s too much like peddling.  I won’t peddle.  I prefer to get regular customers and take orders and fill them.”

While he had been talking he had been glancing toward me where I hung in the window, and he now politely asked if he might come to look at me.  Eliza gave a surprised consent, but watched the boy closely as he stood near and chirped to me calling me, “Po-o-o-r Dickey Downy,” as soon as he found out my name.  I saw from the way Eliza kept her eyes on his movements that she was expecting he would do something to hurt me, but in this she was pleasantly disappointed, for he never once touched my cage and cooed as softly when he spoke to me as Polly herself might have done.