Big Brother | Page 9

to the leaf. "He flied in ze
kitchen an' sat down in ze apple peelin's. I jus' poked him, nen he flied
up and bit me. He's dead now," he added triumphantly. "Gramma killed
him. See all ze cattow-pillows walkin' in ze p'cession?"
So the days slipped by in the old farmhouse. Frost nipped the gardens,
and summer vanished entirely from orchard and field. The happy
outdoor life was at an end, and Robin was like a caged squirrel. Steven
had his hands full keeping him amused and out of the way.
"Well, my lad, isn't it about time for you to be starting to school?" Mr.
Dearborn would ask occasionally. "You know I agreed to send you
every winter, and I must live up to my promises."
But Steven made first one pretext and then another for delay. He knew
he could not take Robin with him. He knew, too, how restless and
troublesome the child would become if left at home all day.

So he could not help feeling glad when Molly went home on a visit,
and Grandma Dearborn said her rheumatism was so bad that she
needed his help. True, he had all sorts of tasks that he heartily
despised,--washing dishes, kneading dough, sweeping and dusting,--all
under the critical old lady's exacting supervision. But he preferred even
that to being sent off to school alone every day.
One evening, just about sundown, he was out in the corncrib, shelling
corn for the large flock of turkeys they were fattening for market. He
heard Grandma Dearborn go into the barn, where her husband was
milking. They were both a little deaf, and she spoke loud in order to be
heard above the noise of the milk pattering into the pail. She had come
out to look at one of the calves they intended selling.
"It's too bad," he heard her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set her
heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such a young
one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but he doesn't
want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He always was
closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see the little fellow go."
"Yes," was the answer, "he's a likely lad; but we're gettin' old, mother,
and one is about all we can do well by. Sometimes I think maybe we've
bargained for too much, tryin' to keep even one. So it's best to let the
little one go before we get to settin' sech store by him that we can't."
A vague terror seized Steven as he realized who it was they were
talking about. He lay awake a long time that night smoothing Robin's
tangled curls, and crying at the thought of the motherless baby away
among strangers, with no one to snuggle him up warm or sing him to
sleep. Then there was another thought that wounded him deeply. Twist
it whichever way he might, he could construe Mr. Dearborn's last
remark to mean but one thing. They considered him a burden. How
many plans he made night after night before he fell asleep! He would
take Robin by the hand in the morning, and they would slip away and
wander off to the woods together. They could sleep in barns at night,
and he could stop at the farmhouses and do chores to pay for what they
ate. Then they need not be a trouble to any one. Maybe in the summer
they could find a nice dry cave to live in. Lots of people had lived that

way. Then in a few years he would be big enough to have a house of
his own. All sorts of improbable plans flocked into his little brain under
cover of the darkness, but always vanished when the daylight came.
The next Saturday that they went to town was a cold, blustering day.
They started late, taking a lunch with them, not intending to come
home until the middle of the afternoon.
The wind blew a perfect gale by the time they reached town. Mr.
Dearborn stopped his team in front of one of the principal groceries,
saying, "Hop out, Steven, and see what they're paying for turkeys
to-day."
As he sprang over the wheel an old gentleman came running around the
corner after his hat, which the wind had carried away.
Steven caught it and gave it to him. He clapped it on his bald crown
with a good-natured laugh. "Thanky, sonny!" he exclaimed heartily.
Then he disappeared inside the grocery just as Mr. Dearborn called out,
"I believe I'll hitch the horses and go in too; I'm nearly frozen."
Steven followed him into the grocery, and they