carriage was not yet out of sight, when Farmer Goodenough began to repent that he had come: his presence was an acknowledgment of responsibility! Something must be done with the foundling! There was nobody to claim him, and nobody wanted him! He had always liked the boy, but he did not want him! His wife was not fond of the boy, nor of any boy, and did not want him! He had said to her that Clare could not be left to starve, and she had answered, “Why not?”! What was to be done with him? Nobody knew—any more than Clare himself. But which of us knows what is going to be done with him?
Clare was nobody’s business. English farmers no more than French are proverbial for generosity; and Farmer Goodenough, no bad type of his class, had a wife in whose thoughts not the pence but the farthings dominated. She was one who at once recoiled and repelled—one of those whose skin shrinks from the skin of their kind, and who are specially apt to take unaccountable dislikes—a pitiable human animal of the leprous sort. She “never took to the foundling,” she said. To have neither father nor mother, she counted disreputable. But I believe the main source of her dislike to Clare was a feeling of undefined reproof in the very atmosphere of the boy’s presence, his nature was so different from hers. What urged him toward his fellow-creatures, made her draw back from him. In truth she hated the boy. The very look of him made her sick, she said. It was only a certain respect for the parson, and a certain fear of her husband, who, seldom angry, was yet capable of fury, that had prevented her from driving the child, “with his dish-clout face,” off the premises, whenever she saw him from door or window. It was no wonder the farmer should he at his wits’ end to know what, as churchwarden, guardian of the poor, and friend of the late vicar—as friendly also to the boy himself, he was bound to do.
“Where are you going?” he asked Sarah.
“Where the Lord wills,” answered the old woman. Her ark had gone to pieces, and she hardly cared what became of her.
“We’ve got to look to ourselves!” said the farmer.
“Parson used to say there was One as took that off our hands!” replied Sarah.
“Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Goodenough, fidgeting a little; “but the Almighty helps them as helps themselves, and that’s sound doctrine. You really must do something, Sarah! We can’t have you on the parish, you know!”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but until the child here is provided for, or until they turn us out of the parsonage, I will not leave the place.”
“The furniture is advertised for sale. You’ll have nothing but the bare walls!”
“We’ll manage to keep each other warm!—Shan’t we, Clare?”
“I will try to keep you warm, Sarah,” responded the boy sadly.
“But the new parson will soon be here. Our souls must be cared for!”
“Is the Lord’s child that came from heaven in an earthquake to be turned out into the cold for fear the souls of big men should perish?”
“Something must be done about it!” said the farmer.
“What it’s to be I can’t tell! It’s no business o’ mine any way!”
“That’s what the priest, and the Levite, and the farmer says!” returned Sarah.
“Won’t you ask Mr. Goodenough to stay to dinner?” said Clare.
He went up to the farmer, who in his perplexity had seated himself, and laid his arm on his shoulder.
“No, I can’t,” answered Sarah. “He would eat all we have, and not have enough!”
“Now Maly is gone,” returned Clare, “I would rather not have any dinner.”
The farmer’s old feeling for the boy, which the dread of having him left on his hands had for the time dulled, came back.
“Get him his dinner, Sarah,” he said. “I’ve something to see to in the village. By the time I come back, he’ll be ready to go with me, perhaps.”
“God bless you, sir!” cried Sarah. “You meant it all the time, an’ I been behavin’ like a brute!”
The farmer did not like being taken up so sharply. He had promised nothing! But he had nearly made up his mind that, as the friend of the late parson, he could scarcely do less than give shelter to the child until he found another refuge. True, he was not the parson’s child, but he had loved him as his own! He would make the boy useful, and so shut his wife’s mouth! There were many things Clare could do about the place!
Chapter XI. Clare on the farm
When Mr. Goodenough appeared at the house-door with the boy, his wife’s face expressed what her tongue dared not utter without some heating of the furnace behind it. But Clare never saw that he was unwelcome. He had not begun to note outward and visible signs in regard to his own species; his observation was confined to the animals, to whose every motion and look he gave heed. But he was hardly aware of watching even them: his love made it so natural to watch, and so easy to understand them! He was not drawn to study Mrs. Goodenough, or to read her indications; he was content to hear what she said.
True to her nature, Mrs. Goodenough, seeing she could not at once get rid of the boy, did her endeavour to make him pay for his keep. Nominally he continued to attend the village school, where the old master was doing his best for him; but, oftener than not, she interposed to prevent his going, and turned him to use about the house, the dairy, and the poultry-yard.
His new mode of life occasioned him no sense of hardship. I do not mean because of his patient acceptance of everything that came; but because he had been so long accustomed to the ways of a farm, to all the phases of life and work in yard and field, that nothing there came strange to him—except having to stick to what he was put to, and having next to no time to read. Many boys who have found much amusement in doing this or that, find it irksome the moment it is required of them: Clare was not of that mean sort; he was a gentleman. Happily he was put to no work beyond his strength.
At first, and for some time, he had to do only with the creatures more immediately under the care of “the mistress,” whence his acquaintance with the poultry and the pigs, the pigeons and the calves—and specially with such as were delicate or had been hurt—with their ways of thinking and their carriage and conduct, rapidly increased.
By and by, however, having already almost ceased to attend school, the farmer, requiring some passing help a boy could give, took him from his wife—not without complaint on her part, neither without sense of relief, and would not part with him again. He was so quick in doing what was required, so intelligent to catch the meaning not always thoroughly expressed, so cheerful, and so willing, that he was a pleasure to Mr. Goodenough—and no less a pleasure to the farmer that dwelt in Mr. Goodenough, and seemed to most men all there was of him; for, instead of an expense, he found him a saving.
It was much more pleasant for Clare to be with his master than with his mistress, but he fared the worse for it in the house. The woman’s dislike of the boy must find outlet; and as, instead of flowing all day long, it was now pent up the greater part of it, the stronger it issued when he came home to his meals. I will not defile my page with a record of the modes in which she vented her spite. It sought at times such minuteness of indulgence, that it was next to impossible for any one to perceive its embodiments except the boy himself.
He now came more into contact with the larger animals about the place; and the comfort he derived from them was greater than most people would readily or perhaps willingly believe. He had kept up his relations with Nimrod, the bull, and there was never a breach of the friendship between them. The people about the farm not unfrequently sought his influence with the animal, for at times they dared hardly approach him. Clare even made him useful—got a little work out of him now and then. But his main interest lay in the horses. He had up to this time known rather less of them than of the other creatures on the place; now he had to give his chief attention to them, laying in love the foundation of that knowledge which afterward stood him in such stead when he came to dwell for a time among certain eastern tribes whose horses are their chief gladness and care. He used, when alone with them, to talk