"Get in," Billy Peet ordered, briefly. "The boss sent me over to fetch you."
"Sent you over to fetch me--in the machine? What's up?" His eye fell on a small straw suitcase in the back of the car. "What's that for?"
"Get in, and I'll tell you as we go along." Tom clambered in beside the driver. "Mis' Quidmore's sick."
When they passed the Quidmore entrance without turning in Tom began to be startled. "Say! Where we going?"
"You're not going home. Doctor don't want you there. Boss telephoned over to Mrs. Tollivant, and she's goin' to keep you till Mis' Quidmore's better--or somethin'."
The boy was not often resentful, but he did resent being trundled about like a package. If his mother was sick his place was at home. He could light the fire, bring in the water from the well, and do the score of little things for which a small boy can be useful. To be shunted off like this, as if he could only be an additional care, was an indignity to the thirteen years he was now supposed to have attained to. But what could he do? Protest was useless. There was nothing for it but to go where he was driven, like Geraldine or the dilapidated car.
And yet at Harfrey he settled down among the Tollivants naturally. No State ward having succeeded him, his room under the eaves was still vacant. Once within its familiar shelter, he soon began to feel as if he had never been away. The family welcomed him with the shades of warmth which went with their ages and characters--Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant overcoming their repugnance to a born waif with that Christian charity which doubtless is all the nobler for being visibly against the grain; Art, now a swaggering fellow of sixteen, with patronizing good nature; Cilly, who affected baby-blue ribbons on a blond pigtail, with airs and condescension; Bertie, the cripple, with satiric cordiality. If it was not exactly a home-coming, it was at least as good as a visit to old friends. He was touched by being included almost as a member of the family in Mr. Tollivant's evening prayer.
"And, O Heavenly Father, take this young wanderer as Thy child, even as we offer him a shelter. Visit not Thine anger upon him, lest he be tempted overmuch."
At the thought of being tempted overmuch Tom felt a pleasing sense of importance. It offered, too, a loophole for excuse in case he should fall. If God didn't intervene on his behalf, easing temptation up, then God would be responsible. And yet, such was the lack of fairness he was bidden to see in God, He would knock a fellow down and then punish him when he tumbled.