For a little while the man stood with a puzzled air; then he turned
back, and went into the hovel again. Maggie with painful effort, had
raised herself to an upright position and was sitting on the bed,
straining her eyes upon the door out of which all had just departed,
A vague terror had come into her thin white face.
"O, Mr. Thompson!" she cried out, catching her suspended breath,
"don't leave me here all alone!"
Though rough in exterior, Joe Thompson, the wheelwright, had a
heart, and it was very tender in some places. He liked children, and
was pleased to have them come to his shop, where sleds and wagons
were made or mended for the village lads without a draft on their
hoarded sixpences.
"No, dear," he answered, in a kind voice, going to the bed, and
stooping down over the child, "You sha'n't be left here alone." Then
he wrapped her with the gentleness almost of a woman, in the clean
bedclothes which some neighbor had brought; and, lifting her in his
strong arms, bore her out into the air and across the field that lay
between the hovel and his home.
Now, Joe Thompson's wife, who happened to be childless, was not a
woman of saintly temper, nor much given to self-denial for others'
good, and Joe had well-grounded doubts touching the manner of
greeting he should receive on his arrival.
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