STEPHEN was a lonely little figure in Benson's great house; he was vastly depressed by the formal manner of life to which the lawyer had adjusted himself, and for which Mrs. Pope his housekeeper was primarily responsible, for Benson was a silent man in his home, and admirable lady that she was, Mrs. Pope was neither a gay nor cheerful person, nor was she gifted in ways to inspire others with gaiety or cheerfulness.

By day the house was his to wander through; there were also the grounds, into which he was thrust at stated intervals by Mrs. Pope, all of whose acts were depressingly regular and ordered. In the gardens, working diligently among the plants or vines, or cutting the acre or two devoted to lawns, Stephen found a taciturn German whose name was Peter, and who limited his remarks to brief requests for the boy to let the flowers alone; nor was he to touch the small fruits; for these, like the flowers, Stephen was given to understand, were grown expressly for Mr. Benson's use and profit.

He gathered that the world had been created for this austere gentleman, whom he knew as his Uncle Jacob. He was indebted to Mrs. Pope for this idea, since she served the lawyer with an eye single to his comforts. His Uncle Jacob objected to dirt, consequently he must keep clean; his Uncle Jacob objected to noise, he was restricted to silence; his Uncle Jacob liked flowers, and Peter laboured that they might bloom for him. Things were only of two sorts; what his Uncle Jacob liked and what his Uncle Jacob did not like, and as one heeded his likes and dislikes one touched hands with morality and righteousness.

As Benson had promised, Stephen was not entirely separated from his aunt; at least twice each week he was dressed in his best, and by Mrs. Pope taken to pay Virginia a visit. But these visits were functions attended by such formality that he derived small comfort from them, and in time he came to rather dread the preliminary ordeals, of which he was the victim. There was always a bath, and he donned the freshest of fresh linen, stiff and miserably unsympathetic; an unfamiliar suit of clothes to which he never grew accustomed, and in which his small limbs were cheerlessly draped, completed his toilet. Thus attired, Mrs. Pope would lead him to the front steps, and Peter would drive around from the stables with a closed carriage. Then there invariably ensued certain lively and apprehensive inquiries on the part of Mrs. Pope as to whether or not the team had shown any undue levity while being harnessed, for the good lady was timorous of all horse-flesh as well as the prey of an abiding and illy-concealed doubt of the German's skill as a driver; however, being satisfied on the one point if not on the other, she would embark her small charge, and then herself; driving to the cottage with the carriage door held slightly ajar, a precaution favouring instant escape in case of danger. Arrived there she would leave Stephen with Virginia and be driven away in painful state to take the air.

Then came a period of freedom and relief for the boy; he had Virginia, and there was his Aunt Jane, who occupied an almost equal place in his affections with Virginia herself; and sometimes there was Harriett Norton, too, with a very pink-faced baby, named Elinor, and a husband who Stephen discovered early in their acquaintance could be persuaded into the most delightful extravagance in the matter of candy; and for perhaps an hour he would be quite happy, so happy he could almost forget that he had an Uncle Jacob; and at this period of his life, his Uncle Jacob seemed responsible for all the misery in the world.

Then Mrs. Pope would return, and Virginia with a strange hardening of the heart would restore him to that august lady. Benson could not have divined how well he was hated.

The lawyer had contented himself with seeing that Stephen wanted for nothing, that he was well dressed and well nourished; but he was such a little fellow, and so palpably depressed by the authority which Mrs. Pope administered, that Benson almost regretted he had forced Virginia to the step he had. His triumph left an aftermath of selfreproach and disgust. He had stooped to petty persecution, and clearly the boy himself was far from happy as a result. It was his wish to mitigate the wrong he felt he had done the child, which in the end provoked him to a display of something approaching personal interest. He was conscious that Stephen met his advances with childish mistrust, but this wore away; the lawyer's gentleness and kindness had their effect just as he intended they should, and Stephen put aside his doubt of his Uncle Jacob, and concluded that he was ever so much better than Mrs. Pope's account of him.

Benson felt that he should have associates of his own age, that Mrs. Pope and Peter were not exactly the most engaging companions he could have, but there were no boys in the neighbourhood whose manners or morals fitted them to be his playfellows. True, there was a region of back streets and alleys in the rear of his ample grounds, overlooked by small frame dwellings; here there were children of all ages, and in course of time Stephen came to know certain of these youthful neighbours of his, for while he had seemed cut off from them by barriers whose nature he did not comprehend, he had long been aware that the world held the possibility of a more desirable companionship than that he was knowing.

There were also strange small boys whom he occasionally saw scurrying through the garden or dodging among the grape arbours. They had appeared with the first half-ripe strawberry; they came again when the big Lorton blackberries were hard as bullets; then their visits languished for a little space; but when the early harvest apples on the two big trees back of the barn were the size of turkey eggs, they reappeared, this time armed with clubs, and there was a fine rattling among the branches.

The effect of these depredations on Peter was not wholly pleasant; indeed at first Stephen had regarded him with wide-eyed terror; for the German would explode in guttural mutterings and strange oaths, as he rushed in pursuit of the thieves, who as they fled before his advance on nimble legs, hurled back taunts and insults.

“Dutchy! Who's afraid of Dutchy! Dutchy can't run! Dutchy's got a belly full of beer—belly full of beer!”

In possession of the field, Peter would retire to the stables where he would supply himself with nails and hatchet, then he would make an examination of the high picket-fence back of the garden, and here he was almost certain to find a spot where a board had been removed to favour a hasty retreat; this he would restore to utility with many unnecessary nails.

One day as Stephen was wandering aimlessly through the garden and among the ripening grapes, he came suddenly upon a boy somewhat older and larger than himself, but brown and barefoot, who was eating Peter's grapes. Earlier in the season Stephen had seen this boy, but always at a distance and always in full flight, routed red-handed from among the strawberries or fleeing from among the blackberries. It was this same boy who had led in the assaults upon the early apples, and here he was back again with the first ripening colour that touched the grapes.

Stephen's first idea was to withdraw; he felt keenly the embarrassment of the situation, since the boy was clearly most immorally engaged in theft, but while he still paused irresolutely, hardly knowing what to do, the barefoot stranger suddenly suspended his attack on the grapes to glance warily and shrewdly about, and saw Stephen in his turn.

It was apparent that his first uncontrollable impulse was flight, for he expected Peter to be somewhere close at hand; but the gardener was working the lawn-mower remote on the front lawn, and the rattle of his machine came reassuringly to his ears. His mind relieved on this score he instantly resumed operations, now and again casting a glance over his shoulder in Stephen's direction. Evidently he had expected the latter to rush off to warn Peter, but Stephen did nothing of the sort, he merely stared at the intruder.

“Hullo, poppy eyes!” said the boy. “What are you doing here? Ain't you afraid old Dutchy will come swarming out here and light into you?”

Stephen answered him by a shy, wistful smile; he felt that he had at last made a comforting acquaintance.

“I got enough,” said the stranger. “Green grapes are great for the cramps.”

Stephen did not know this, but he was politely interested; there was one thing he wanted to ask the stranger, and now he said:

“Ain't you afraid of Peter?”

“Afraid of Dutchy?” with infinite scorn. “If he comes around here, him and me will see times! Say, what's your name?”

“Stephen Landray.”

“Mine's Benjamin Wade; but you can call me Ben for short if you want to.”

Stephen looked his gratitude for the privilege.

“Where did you get in?” asked Stephen.

“Over the back fence and up through the orchard. I manage to keep a board off the fence most of the time, but old Dutchy's pretty patient about nailing it up. Them Germans ain't easily discouraged; seems like he is always hoping he can get it to stick.”

Then he showed Stephen the inner economy of his ragged jacket; he had removed the linings of each pocket and the result was a sacklike receptacle which he told Stephen, after calling upon him to admire the ingenuity of the arrangement, would hold by actual measurement, a peck of apples.

“I'm fond of fruit,” he explained. “Once, old Jake Benson caught me here—I was in his strawberries. Say, I was stiff! He most scared the life out of me, he come on me so sudden, but he only asked me what I was doing; he's all right! What did you say your name was?”

“Stephen Landray,” repeated Stephen.

The boy considered.

“There's Landray's hill, Landray's woods, Landray's race, and Landray's mill—but it ain't running any more—and Landray's fork; ever been to any of 'em?”

Stephen was forced to own that he had not.

“Well, I'll show 'em to you some day. I go to all them places often.”

Benjamin Wade was preparing to take his departure, and the smaller boy was sorry enough to see him go.

“I'll tell you, I'm coming back—maybe about this time to-morrow; and I may bring a feller or two with me. I'll show you where you be back of the arbours so as we can find you.” And he led the way to a snug hiding-place, well screened from observation. “You be here just about now to-morrow and we may happen along.”

Benjamin Wade seemed a person of perfect freedom, but one whose social obligations were numerous and pleasantly diversified. Stephen followed him to the back fence, and stood with his small wistful face pressed between the pickets, watching him from sight down the alley. The lonely little fellow was in a fever of impatience for the morrow. He wondered whom the fellers would be that Benjamin Wade would bring, and he hoped that he would not forget to come as he had promised.

Benjamin Wade was as good as his word. He appeared promptly the next day at the appointed place and hour, and with him was a small boy whom he introduced as Spike. He invited Stephen to accompany him and Spike to a swimming-hole in Landray's fork, and when Stephen declined the invitation, as he felt constrained to do, the two boys promptly left him, after making certain insulting comments on his lack of independence.

He feared that he had lost them forever, and was reduced to tears in consequence. But the very next day Benjamin Wade reappeared at the same hour and at the appointed trysting place, accompanied by Spike and a second small boy called Reddy.

The four squatted on the grass back of the arbours and proceeded to assiduously cultivate an acquaintance. Reddy was of an inquiring mind beyond what was natural even to a small boy meeting a strange small boy for the first time. Stephen's occupation seemed to rest heavy on him. He wanted to know what his pursuits were; and the nature of his responsibilities in life; and particularly where the authority of his elders limited his freedom.

Stephen dutifully told him of Mr. Benson and of Mrs. Pope; that it was she who sent him out into the yard to play; that he had the choice of either the front lawn or the garden, but that the barn was under a ban as being dangerous.

“You hear that, you fellows? I'd be gosh darned if I'd let her dictate to me!” said Reddy who was of a violent nature. “Does she give you anything to play with, that's what I want to know.”

Stephen was forced to confess that she did not.

“That's just like a woman! I wonder how she thinks you're going to play! I just wouldn't play, I'd learn her she couldn't boss me!”

He seemed quite incensed at the unreasonableness of the situation, and Stephen was not free from an uneasy suspicion that he regarded him as mean spirited in consequence of his quiet acceptance of it.

Then it appeared that Reddy, his name was Riley Crittendon, was the only child and despair of a widow whose straitened circumstances were sufficiently advertised by his clothes, which in no way fitted his lean active figure. Benjamin Wade explained that Reddy, like the barn, was under a ban; and that he consorted with him only at great personal risk, since his father had repeatedly threatened him with corporal chastisement if he so much as recognized his iniquitous existence.

Stephen's innocent eyes grew wide at this.

The same was true in the case of Spike. All that Benjamin Wade's father had promised Benjamin Wade, Spike's father had promised him, and Spike intimated that he was singularly capable of fulfilling each promise he had made; yet in spite of this, they both associated with Reddy indefatigably, but in the unostentatious manner favoured by back alleys.

Reddy's career of crime seemed to have embraced a long category of evil and wrong-doing. He had once run away from home with a circus; he had twice narrowly escaped drowning, by venturing on the thin ice he had been forbidden to venture on in the early winter; his crowning achievement, however, was having been blown up in a Fourth of July celebration which he had arranged with stolen powder; but the complete list of his crimes would have filled a long summer afternoon.

It was Benjamin Wade who constituted himself Reddy's historian, though he received occasional promptings from Spike, who seemed most anxious that he should overlook no act that had gone to make up the sum and substance of Reddy's iniquity; and while Benjamin Wade was thus busy, Reddy himself was seen to visibly swell with pride.

Stephen, piously reared and with certain maxims of Mrs. Pope's New England morality fresh in his mind, and rejoicing in the recently acquired knowledge that there was such a place as hell, apparently especially designed for little boys who were a trouble to their elders, or who told lies or stole, or otherwise misconducted themselves, was in momentary fear that the hardened sinner before him would be forcibly dragged from their midst by a legion of devils; but nothing of the sort happened. Reddy chuckled and gurgled as Ben and Spike proceeded with the story of his crimes; no Voice issued from the wide blue arch above them, and the earth at their feet did not rend itself; evidently Mrs. Pope's facts were not designed to fit the peculiar case of Riley Crittendon.

“But you are almost as bad; ain't you?” he said to Benjamin Wade. “You steal;” but he spoke with some trepidation, at its worst this was evidently a venial error.

“I ain't a patch on him, am I Reddy?”

“Naw,” said Reddy disdainfully.

“There ain't a feller in this part of town, maybe not in the whole town that can touch Reddy!” said Spike generously; and Reddy chuckled and gurgled again at this.

When they had sufficiently glorified Reddy, they imparted to Stephen facts that he had not known before; amongst others, that old Jake Benson was the richest man in town, and that he, Stephen, was reputed to be the lawyer's heir, this was very pleasant, but Stephen was profoundly shocked when the abandoned Reddy said:

“I should think you would be mighty anxious to have him die quick so as you could get your hand on his money and spend it—I bet I would!”

After this Stephen saw much of the boys, and they helped him through the long summer days; but he only saw them in the safe retreat back of the grape arbours; they dared not venture further into the grounds with him where they would fall under Peter's eye, and he dared not quit the grounds with them, though once or twice he mustered courage to go into the back alley with Benjamin Wade, and was promptly returned to his own domain by the sinful Reddy, who seemed to have established himself his mentor in all nice questions of morality. It was also Reddy who advanced the theory that when they came to see Stephen, they must let old Dutchy's fruit alone, and when Spike took it upon himself to violate this rule of conduct it was the capable Reddy who blacked his eye.

In the end Stephen came to see more of Reddy than he did of either of the other boys, and he finally asked Benson's permission to have him in to play—and would he please tell Peter not to chase him out of the yard.

Benson seemed to think it well that he should have a playfellow of his own age, that is, if this playfellow were a good boy; and Stephen answered diplomatically, that Reddy was always a very good boy when he was in the yard.

“Oh, then you have had him in, Stephen?” and Benson laughed.

“Yes, but only near the fence; he's afraid of Dutch—of Peter.”

“Well, if he behaves himself as well as you say he does, I guess Peter won't interfere with him. I'll tell him not to. What's his name?”

“Reddy,” said Stephen, for beyond this he did not know that his friend had a name.

Fortunately this meant nothing to Benson who had never heard of any such boy.

When Reddy was informed that he was free to play in the grounds, he inspected the entire premises with wary caution, and could not on the first visit be induced to go within several hundred yards of the gardener. Yet on a subsequent visit Peter coming upon the small sinner quite unexpectedly, presented him with a red apple, and thus peace and good-will was established between them.

“After that I'll never yell belly full of beer at him any more,” said Reddy contritely.

Stephen would have liked to introduce him to the splendours of the house itself, but he never succeeded in this; nothing would induce Reddy to enter it; and he fled instantly at sight of Mrs. Pope; which, after all, was perhaps just as well, as she saw him but vaguely through glasses which she was never quite able to bring to bear upon him in season, and so he escaped identification which could only have resulted disastrously. She said he seemed a shy child.

But Benson was preparing for Stephen's future in accordance with certain theories of his own. Business had taken him East during the summer, and while there he had visited several boys' schools. At last he found just such an institution as he was looking for. It was both a school and a home. Here Stephen would have the care he could not himself give him, he would have proper associates of his own age, and there would be no danger of his acquiring false and harmful ideas as he grew older as to his expectations in life. It was no part of the lawyer's plan that the boy should be brought back to Benson, at least, not until his habits and judgments were formed. As to his promise to Virginia that she should not be wholly separated from Stephen, it had already become irksome to him. Stephen was his care, his responsibility; no part of it would he share with her; the boy must learn to look to him for everything.

His farewells were a bitter, grievous thing to Stephen. They came quick upon Benson's return home, and the parting with his Aunt Virginia, and his Aunt Jane, and Harriett, and the baby, tore his small heart as no grief that had yet entered into his life had torn it. The very stability of things seemed to shake under him; he was stunned and stupefied. He was to go so far away, he could not see his Aunt Virginia, his Aunt Jane, Harriett, or the baby—and the boys! He would probably never see Spike, or Reddy, or Benjamin Wade again!

The promise of a return to Benson the next summer, which the lawyer had not been able to deny him, was no comfort to him. If the intervening months had been years they could not have been more terrible to him.

This knowledge that he was to go away, and his farewells at the cottage, all fell on one sad afternoon that he remembered long afterward with a dreadful sinking of the heart. Then Mrs. Pope appeared with Peter and the carriage, and as Virginia led him down the path to the gate, she said:

“You will not forget to love us, Stephen dear; and it will not be for so very long, for you will come back next summer;” and so she surrendered him with a final kiss to Mrs. Pope.

Stephen shrank into his seat as they were driven away; he did not trust himself to look back at the little group they were leaving, for he was aware that Mrs. Pope was not sympathetic when small boys were moved to tears, since grief was quite as objectionable to her as any crude or noisy expression of joy.

When they reached home, he walked disconsolately in the garden. He hoped Reddy, or Spike, or Benjamin Wade, would visit him in his misery and sickness of spirit, for they had not heard the tragic news, and he would have greatly valued an expression of opinion from one of them. And as he was hoping that one of them might come, he heard a shrill familiar whistle, and Reddy appeared from the back alley.

Stephen told the sorrowful news, and as he told it, strange things happened to Reddy's face. Then all at once he burst into loud wailings, and turning from Stephen, fled across the green lawn, down the shaded rows between the grape arbours, through the apple orchard, through a hole in the fence, and disappeared in the alley beyond. It was in vain that Stephen called after him, shakingly, chokingly:

“Reddy! Reddy, come back! That ain't near all! Oh, please, Reddy, come back!”

With the last flutter of Reddy's ragged jacket in the distance, Stephen's heart seemed to break. He threw himself face down on the ground, and wept bitterly.

The next day he was led resolutely to the 'bus by Mrs. Pope, where his Uncle Jacob had preceded him, and whither his small trunk had already been conveyed; and as he slowly took his seat beside the lawyer, he glanced from the window and saw across the lawn three small bare-legged figures in the street.

It was Reddy, with Spike, and Benjamin Wade; they had assembled to see him off, and now, as he left the grounds, they cheered him lustily. At least, Ben and Spike did, for Reddy, in the gutter was turning handsprings—his most valued accomplishment—with bewildering rapidity, to hide his emotions; while descending upon the three, Stephen caught sight of Peter armed with a garden rake. This was the last he saw of them; for though he looked again and again, his eyes were blinded with tears.