For Mrs. Quidmore's sake he watched Mr. Quidmore, but as he didn't know what he was watching him for the results were not helpful. And he liked them both. He might have said that he loved them both, since loving came to him so easily. Mrs. Quidmore washed and mended his clothes, and whenever she went to Harfrey or some other town she added to his wardrobe. Mr. Quidmore was forever dropping into his ear some gentle, honeyed confidence of which Mrs. Quidmore was the butt. Neither of them ever scolded him, or overworked him. He was in the house almost as a son. And then one day he learned that he was to be there altogether as a son.
He never knew how and when the question as to his adoption had been raised, or whether the husband or the wife had raised it first. Here, too, the steps were taken with that kind of mystification which shrouded so much of his destiny. He himself was not consulted till, apparently, all the principal parties but himself had decided on the matter. One of the Guardians, or a representative, asked him the formal question as to whether or not he should like it, and being answered with a Yes, had gone away. The next thing he knew he had legally become the son of Martin and Anna Quidmore, and was to be henceforth called by their name.
The outward changes were not many. He had won so much freedom in the house that when he became its son and heir there was, for the minute, little more to give him. His new mother grew more openly affectionate; his new father drove him round in the dilapidated car and showed him to the neighbors as his boy. As far as Tom could judge, there was general approval. Martin Quidmore had taken a poor outcast lad and given him a home and a status in the world. All good people must rejoice in this sort of generosity. The new father rejoiced in it himself, smiling with a twisted smile that was like a leer, the only thing about him which the new son was afraid of.
It was August now. The picking of the strawberries having long been over, the boy had been kept on for other jobs. He still worked at them. He dug potatoes; he picked peas and beans; he pulled carrots, parsnips, and beets; he culled cucumbers. The hired hands did the heaviest work, but he shared in it to the limit of his strength. Sometimes he went off early in the morning on the great lorry, loaded with garden-truck, which his father drove to the big markets.
