“Think it over,” said Percy. “Meanwhile you will want a little money.”
“But you will, though. Here’s a trifle, which you can repay when it is perfectly convenient,” added Percy, seeing that the proud boy would not accept a gift.
“Well, if you _lend_ it to me,” said Jack, receiving the jingling coin in his palm. “I’ll pay you some time. If I can only get that money of Hank Huswick! I’ll go for it this very afternoon!”
“Well, good by,” said Percy, tying up his plants. “Keep your head and heart right, and you’ll do well, whatever happens. Come to me if you want help. You know where I live.”
And he sauntered off across the field, looking curiously at every bird and plant and stone.
“How happy he is!” thought Jack, following him with yearning eyes. “And I was just so happy once! Shall I ever, shall I ever be again?”
He revisited the spring, and afterwards made a dessert of berries in a wild field hedged by raspberry and blackberry bushes; then set out to find the Huswick boys.
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ALONE in her lonely little house, in the closing twilight, Aunt Patsy had put up the leaf of her rickety pine table, and, having placed upon it a pewter plate and a cracked teacup, was busy preparing her humble supper,—bending over the hearth, toasting a crust of bread on a fork, beside a simmering teapot,—when the door was softly pushed open and somebody looked in.
“Who’s there?” shrieked the old woman, dropping her toast and starting up in affright.
“Nobody but me; don’t be scared, Aunt Patsy.” And the visitor glided into the room and softly closed the door again.
“You! Jack Hazard!” she exclaimed, recovering her self-possession. “Bless ye, lad, I’m always glad to see ye. But vicious boys have played so many mean tricks on me, I’m awful skittish! It’s gittin’ so dark I didn’t know ye at fust. Or is it that odd-lookin’ hat you’ve got on?”
Jack laughed, and said he thought it must be the hat that disguised him. “It’s a borrowed one; I’m great on borrowing hats! Did I ever tell you how I made free with Syd Chatford’s once? A very quiet and accommodating gentleman was kind enough to let me take this right off from his head; he’s standing out in the open field bareheaded now, waiting for me to return it.”