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Page 31
"You wont pay for the shoes?" asked Crip.
"No money," said Jo, thrusting forth a tied-up foot, wrapped in
sail-rags. "But, Crip, do hurry! I must get home to mother, if she's
alive."
"She's alive--saw her to meeting," said Crip, fumbling in a wooden box
to get forth a pair of half-worn shoes he remembered about.
He produced them. Jo Jay seized the shoes eagerly, and, taking off his
wrappings, quickly thrust his feet, that had so long been shoeless,
into them: and, with a "Bless you, Crip! I'll make it all right some
day." hobbled off, making tracks in the snow, just before Crip's father
came up from the dock.
Mr. John Allen returned in a despondent mood. There was not oil enough
on board the "Sweet Home" to buy shoes for the men.
"Who's been here, Crip? Socks in and shoes out, I see."
"Jo Jay, father."
"Where's the money, Crip?" and Mr. Allen turned his big, searching blue
eyes on Crip, and held forth his hand.
"Why, father," said Crip, "he hadn't any, and he wanted to go home.
It's three miles, you know, and snowing."
"Crip Allen! Do you know what you've done? You've _stolen_ a pair of
shoes."
"Oh, I haven't, father," cried Crip, "and 't was only the old,
half-worn shoes that you mended for George Hine, that he couldn't
wear."
"Christopher!" thundered forth Mr. Allen, in a voice that made the lad
shake in his boots, "go into the house and right upstairs to bed. You
have stolen a pair of shoes from your own father. You _knew_ they were
not yours to give away."
Poor Crip! Now he couldn't get a sight of the "Sweet Home" to-night,
even through the darkness and the snow.
His upper lip began to tremble and give way, but he went into the big
red house, up the front staircase to his own room, and, in the cold,
crept under the blankets into a big feather bed, and thought of Jo
plodding his way home.
About eight of the clock, when Crip was fast asleep, the door opened,
somebody walked in, and a hand touched the boy, and left a bit of cake
on his pillow; then the hand and the somebody went away, and Crip was
left alone until morning. He went down to breakfast when called. His
father's face was more stern than it had been the night before. Crip
could scarcely swallow the needful food. When breakfast was over, Mr.
Allen said:
"Christopher. Go into the garret and stay till I call you. I'll teach
you not to take what doesn't belong to you, even to give away."
"Father!" beseechingly said Crip's mother, "it is the boy's birthday."
"Go to the garret!" said Mr. Allen.
Crip went, and he was having the dismal time of it referred to in the
beginning of this story. Poor little chap! He stayed up there all the
morning, his mother's heart bleeding for him, and his sisters saying in
their hearts, "Father's awful cruel." It did seem so, but Mr.
Christopher Allen, the nation-known shipping merchant, said, fifty
years later, when relating the story to a party of friends on board one
of his fine steamships:
"That severe punishment was the greatest kindness my father ever
bestowed on my boyhood. Why, a hundred times in my life, when under the
power of a great temptation to use money in my hands that did not
belong to me, even for the best and highest uses, and when I _knew_
that I could replace it, I have been saved by the power of the stern,
hard words, the cold, flashing eyes, and the day in the garret. Yes,
yes, father was right. I ought to have taken off _my own shoes, and
gone without any_, to give to Jo Jay. That was his idea of giving."
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