" The
handwriting did not seem like his father's, nor yet entirely like 'Lige
Curtis's. What it meant he did not know,--he would not try to think. He
should forget it, as he had tried to forget what had happened before,
and he should never tell it to any one!
There was a feverish gayety in his sisters' manner that afternoon that
he did not understand; short colloquies that were suspended with ill
concealed impatience when he came near them, and resumed when he
was sent, on equally palpable excuses, out of the room. He had been
accustomed to this exclusion when there were strangers present, but it
seemed odd to him now, when the conversation did not even turn upon the
two superior visitors who had been there, and of whom he confidently
expected they would talk. Such fragments as he overheard were always in
the future tense, and referred to what they intended to do. His
mother, whose affection for him had always been shown in excessive
and depressing commiseration of him in even his lightest moments, that
afternoon seemed to add a prophetic and Cassandra-like sympathy for some
vague future of his that would require all her ministration. "You won't
need them new boots, Milty dear, in the changes that may be comin' to
ye; so don't be bothering your poor father in his worriments over his
new plans."
"What new plans, mommer?" asked the boy abruptly. "Are we goin' away
from here?"
"Hush, dear, and don't ask questions that's enough for grown folks to
worry over, let alone a boy like you.
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