Chapter X: Alice and Jeff

Like Craig Mason, Alice was an early riser. The dewy morning in summer was to her the best part of the day. She had slept well, and before the village clock struck five she was up and dressed. Helen, whose room adjoined hers, heard her moving about and called softly to her.

“What is it?” Alice asked, going to her, and Helen answered, sleepily, “Are you up so soon? It seems to me I’ve only just got into bed. Open the blind, please, and let in some air and light. How pretty and fresh you look,” she continued, as Alice opened the blind and came to the bedside. “That gown is so becoming, and I don’t suppose it cost more than fifty cents a yard.”

“Twenty-five,” Alice interposed, and Helen went on, “Well, it is a heap prettier than my Paris gowns, all fuss and feathers. You are going out?”

“Yes; to see what the place is like, and report.”

“That’s right. Find out if Craig Mason is here. I am awfully tired and don’t believe I shall get up for ever so long. If he is here you will see him and tell me what manner of man he is; what he likes and dislikes, so I can like and dislike the same. I don’t know why, but I fancy he may be bookish. Did you bring Tennyson?”

“Yes.”

“And English Literature?”

“Yes.”

“Whose?”

“Taine’s.”

“All right. I guess I can master enough of him to talk about. Won’t you bring me Tennyson before you go? I may look him over a little. It is well to have a favorite poet, and he’ll do as well as any body. I know about that poem, ‘Why don’t you speak for yourself, John,’ and should do just as Priscilla did. Wasn’t that her name? and was it Whittier who wrote it, or Longfellow?”

“Longfellow,” Alice answered, as she went for Tennyson’s poems.

“Find the ‘May Queen,’ and put the book on the bed,” Helen said.

Alice did so, and started to leave the room, when her cousin called her back and whispered very low, as if afraid the walls might hear, “I want to know who that tall man is who carried me in his arms through the rain, and spoke so like a gentleman. I can’t get him out of my mind. He held me so delicately, as if it were a pleasure, but one for which he ought to apologize.”

Alice did not wait for any more directions, but passed downstairs to the office, where she registered their names, and then stepped out upon the piazza just as Jeff appeared with a large basket on his arm.

“Hallo, Jeff; where you goin’?” Uncle Zach asked, and Jeff replied, “To the river after pond lilies.”

“Oh,” Alice said, “pond lilies and the river. Is it far? Can I go?”

She spoke to Jeff, who replied, “Not very far if we go acrost the lots through the wet grass, but you’ll have to hold up your gown.”

At this point Uncle Zacheus, who was famous for introducing people, came up and said, “Miss Tracy, this is Jefferson Wilkes, our chore boy. We let him get the lilies and sell ’em for a penny apiece. ’Tain’t far to the river, but pretty wet for them boots; bran’ new, ain’t they?” and he glanced admiringly at Alice’s five-dollar boots, worn that morning for the first time.

“Yes; quite new, and I can’t afford to spoil them,” Alice said. “Wait, Jefferson, till I change them.”

She ran up to her room, put on her second best boots and rubbers and was soon off with Jeff, holding her skirts above her ankles, while Uncle Zacheus looked admiringly after her. Jeff was very proud and attentive, and led her through the driest places and helped her over the stone wall and into the boat, asking if she were at all afraid.

“Not in the least,” she said. “I know how to row, and if I didn’t I feel sure of you,” and she beamed upon him a smile so bright that if he had been on the land he would at once have stood upon his head, his favorite way of showing his delight.

He knew that one of the young ladies was very wealthy, but did not know which one it was sitting with him and helping him with the boat when it got entangled among the lily pads. At last, as his admiration increased, he asked abruptly, “Be you the rich Miss Tracy, with such piles of money?”

Alice laughed and answered him, “Oh, no. I am the poor Miss Tracy and teach school among the mountains.”

“Golly! I thought you’s the rich one, you’re so—kinder—I don’t know what,” Jeff said.

School-teachers, as a rule, were not great favorites with him, but this one must be different from those he had known. Steering the boat to a shaded place where a birch tree drooped over the water he began to pull in the lilies which were very thick just there, and finally said, “Did you have boys in your school; boys like me, I mean?”

“Oh, yes. Quite a number your size, and some older.”

“Did you have to lick ’em?”

“Never,” Alice answered, greatly amused with the boy, who continued, “What did you do when they cut up?”

“They didn’t cut up much, and when they did I talked to them till they were sorry,” Alice replied, while Jeff rejoined, “I wish you was my schoolma’am. I get whaled two or three times a week. Don’t hurt me, though.”

“What do you do to get punished so often?” Alice asked, and Jeff replied, “Oh, nothin’ much. I hide the scholars’ books and pails and dinners,—for fun, you know,—but I’m whaled the most for gettin’ things out of their pockets when they don’t know it.”

“A pickpocket!” Alice exclaimed, and Jeff rejoined, “No, I don’t do it for keeps, but to see if I can,—and I can, too,” he added, with the air of one well pleased with himself. “I’ll bet you a cent I can take everything out of your pocket there is in it, and you not know it, as we go back to the hotel. Take the bet?”

Alice looked in a kind of terror at this boy, whose frank, handsome face belied his words, and who, having filled his basket with lilies, was rowing out into the river, preparatory to landing on the other side.

“Oh, Jefferson,” she said, “never pick a pocket again, even for fun. It is dangerous business, and will get you into trouble,—prison, maybe.”

She spoke with great earnestness, and put one of her hands on Jeff’s arm to emphasize her words. Her face was very close to his and her blue eyes looked at him just as no other eyes had ever rested upon him. Mrs. Taylor had always been angry when reproving the young scamp, and usually rounded her reproof with a box on the ear. His teacher _whaled_ him as he said, while Mark, the only one who claimed jurisdiction over him, smiled at his dexterity while scolding him for it. Alice took a different course, appealing to his better nature, and, after listening for a few moments to her, he said, “I never meant no harm. I called it sleight of hand, but I b’lieve I’ll quit it. Nobody ever talked to me this way before, makin’ me feel ashamed. Miss Taylor cuffs me when she jaws; the teachers thrash me, and Mr. Hilton scolds with one corner of his mouth and laughs with the other. Yes, I’ll quit it, if you say so; but what’ll you bet I can’t stand on my head in the boat and not tip it a bit?”

He seemed resolved upon showing his accomplishments in some way, but Alice declined taking the last bet, as she had the first, and was rather glad to find herself on _terra firma_. The mention of Mr. Hilton reminded her that possibly there was a chance for her to learn something of the inmates of the hotel. A boy like Jeff would be likely to tell the truth. First she asked him of himself,—how old he was, and where he was born. He told her his age as nearly as he could, but did not know where he was born; nowhere, he guessed. His father and mother died in Boston and he lived anywhere, in alleys and streets, turning summersaults in the day time and sleeping at night in a big old hogshead that had drifted ashore on the wharf. He concluded his story by saying, “Mr. Hilton found me and brought me to the hotel.”

“Who is Mr. Hilton?” Alice asked, and Jeff replied, “Why, he’s Mark, the clerk, who sees to things and insults with Mrs. Taylor about everything. He put that rose on your table last night. Did you smell it?”

Alice had noticed it, and said so, while Jeff continued, “He got it off of a grave down in the cemetery, where some of his kin is buried. I seen him, for I was in the brook close by, trying to catch some polywogs.”

Alice wanted to ask what polywogs were, but would not interrupt the boy, who went on: “He met you last night, don’t you know, and carried you into the house.”

“Not me; that was my cousin. _You_ helped me,” Alice said, and asked next, “Are there any other gentlemen in the hotel beside Mr. Hilton?”

“My, yes; I guess there is,” and Jeff warmed up at once. “There’s Mr. Mason from Boston. Awful swell; takes a bath and has his shoes blacked every morning, and wears a clean shirt and collar and cuffs every day. I only wear one shirt a week. Mr. Hilton wears three.”

Alice thought it possible that neither Mr. Hilton nor Craig Mason would care for her to have a more intimate knowledge of their habits, and began to speak of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Here, too, Jeff was very communicative. “Mr. Taylor was fust rate, and let a feller alone,” he said. Some called him shiffless, but he liked that kind of shiffless that wasn’a allus pitchin’ in to a chap. Miss Taylor was boss, and smart as chain lightnin’, only she couldn’t git round quite so quick, she was so big,—tipped the scale at two hundred. He liked her some and should like her more if she didn’t make him go to Sunday-school and learn twenty verses in the Bible beside. He was through with the Sermon on the Mount, and was tackling Nicodemus, which was easier.

They had reached the hotel by this time, and with every step Alice’s interest had increased in Jeff, whose admiration for her had kept pace with her interest in him. He offered to go with her to the woods and show her a big hornet’s nest and a mud turtle’s bed in the pond, of which no one knew but himself, and he made her take half of the lilies, refusing any remuneration at first. Then, suddenly, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he said, “If you want to pay me so bad give me a dime and we’ll call it square.”

Alice put her hand in her pocket for her purse, which was gone, with her handkerchief and her gloves, which she had taken off when she helped pull in the lilies. Before she could utter an exclamation of surprise, Jeff, who was watching her, had turned a summersault and was on his feet with her missing articles in his hand.

“Here they be,” he said, but the laugh died away when he saw the expression of Alice’s face and the tears in her eyes as she said, “Oh, Jefferson, how could you! You promised you wouldn’t, and I believed you.”

If she had struck him she would not have hurt him as much as did the sight of her tears and the sound of her voice.

“I didn’t mean to when I promised, but I wanted to try it just once more,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry, and I’ll never do it again, never. I don’t want to be a bad boy.”

“I am sure you don’t, and as a beginning, never try that trick again,” Alice said, putting her hand on his hair and smoothing it as she talked.

“I won’t; I won’t,” Jeff said, “and you’ll go with me to see the hornet’s nest and the mud turkles just the same?”

Alice promised, and feeling that he was restored to favor, Jeff ran off with his basket of lilies, while Alice changed her boots and went down to breakfast with her aunt, who asked where she had been and with whom.

Alice told her of Jeff, who had offered to stand on his head in the boat and not rock it, and had picked her pocket as they came up the hill.

“The wretch!” Mrs. Tracy exclaimed. “A pickpocket! A thief! You ought to report him. We are not safe here, and Helen so careless with her money and jewelry.”

As well as she could Alice explained, saying it was done for fun,—that there was no harm in the boy,—that she liked him immensely, and would trust him anywhere. While she talked Jeff was crouching under an open window, cutting the long grass with a sickle and hearing all that was said. At first he resented Alice’s telling of his prank, but his anger died away as he listened to her defense of him. Mrs. Tracy had called him a thief, and it had a bad sound.

“I ain’t a thief,” he thought, wiping his eyes where the tears were beginning to gather. “I never kep’ a cent’s wuth from anybody. I do it because I can’t help it, my fingers tingle so to try it. I was mean to lie to her when she spoke so nice to me, and put her hand on my head as if she liked me. I feel it there now,” and he put his soiled hand where Alice’s white one had lain and where in imagination he would feel it again in after years when temptation and sin had marred the beauty and blighted the innocence of a face which was so frank and open now in its young boyhood.