Harding’s Luck, E. Nesbit [summer reads .TXT] 📗

when he grew up he would be expected to look after his servants and laborers, and all the men and women whom he would have under him⁠—that their happiness and well-being would be his charge. And the thought swelled his heart, and it seemed that he was born to a great destiny. He⁠—little lame Dickie Harding of Deptford⁠—he would hold these people’s lives in his hand. Well, he knew what poor people wanted; he had been poor⁠—or he had dreamed that he was poor⁠—it was all the same. Dreams and real life were so very much alike.

So Dickie changed, every hour of every day and every moment of every hour, from the little boy who lived at New Cross among the yellow houses and the ugliness, who tramped the white roads, and slept at the Inn of the Silver Moon, to Richard of the other name who lived well and slept softly, and knew himself called to a destiny of power and helpful kindness. For his nurse had told him that his father was a rich man; and that father’s riches would be his one day, to deal with for the good of the men under him, for their happiness and the glory of God. It was a great and beautiful thought, and Dickie loved it.

He loved, indeed, everything in this new life⁠—the shapes and colors of furniture and hangings, the kind old nurse, the friendly, laughing maids, the old doctor with his long speeches and short smiles, his bed, his room, the ships, the river, the trees, the gardens⁠—the very sky seemed cleaner and brighter than the sky that had been over the Deptford that Dickie Harding had known.

And then came the day when the nurse, having dressed him, bade him walk to the window, instead of being carried, as, so far, he had been.

“Where⁠ ⁠…” he asked, hesitatingly, “where’s my⁠ ⁠… ? Where have you put the crutch?”

Then the old nurse laughed.

“Crutch?” she said. “Come out of thy dreams. Thou silly boy! Thou wants no crutch with two fine, straight, strong legs like thou’s got. Come, use them and walk.”

Dickie looked down at his feet. In the old New Cross days he had not liked to look at his feet. He had not looked at them in these new days. Now he looked. Hesitated.

“Come,” said the nurse encouragingly.

He slid from the high bed. One might as well try. Nurse seemed to think⁠ ⁠… He touched the ground with both feet, felt the floor firm and even under them⁠—as firm and even under the one foot as under the other. He stood up straight, moved the foot that he had been used to move⁠—then the other, the one that he had never moved. He took two steps, three, four⁠—and then he turned suddenly and flung himself against the side of the bed and hid his face in his arms.

“What, weeping, my lamb?” the nurse said, and came to him.

“Oh, Nurse,” he cried, clinging to her with all his might. “I dreamed that I was lame! And I thought it was true. And it isn’t!⁠—it isn’t!⁠—it isn’t!”

Quite soon Dickie was able to walk downstairs and out into the garden along the grassy walks and long alleys where fruit trees trained over trellises made such pleasant green shade, and even to try to learn to play at bowls on the long bowling-green behind the house. The house was by far the finest house Dickie had ever been in, and the garden was more beautiful even than the garden at Talbot Court. But it was not only the beauty of the house and garden that made Dickie’s life a new and full delight. To limp along the leafy ways, to crawl up and down the carved staircase would have been a pleasure greater than any Dickie had ever known; but he could leap up and down the stairs three at a time, he could run in the arched alleys⁠—run and jump as he had seen other children do, and as he had never thought to do himself. Imagine what you would feel if you had lived wingless all your life among people who could fly. That is how lame people feel among us who can walk and run. And now Dickie was lame no more.

His feet seemed not only to be strong and active, but clever on their own account. They carried him quite without mistake to the blacksmith’s at the village on the hill⁠—to the centre of the maze of clipped hedges that was the centre of the garden, and best of all they carried him to the dockyard.

Girls like dolls and tea-parties and picture-books, but boys like to see things made and done; else how is it that any boy worth his salt will leave the newest and brightest toys to follow a carpenter or a plumber round the house, fiddle with his tools, ask him a thousand questions, and watch him ply his trade? Dickie at New Cross had spent many an hour watching those interesting men who open square trap-doors in the pavement and drag out from them yards and yards of wire. I do not know why the men do this, but every London boy who reads this will know.

And when he got to the dockyard his obliging feet carried him to a man in a great leather apron, busy with great beams of wood and tools that Dickie had never seen. And the man greeted him as an old friend, kissed him on both cheeks⁠—which he didn’t expect, and felt much too old for⁠—and spread a sack for him that he might sit in the sun on a big baulk of timber.

“Thou’rt a sight for sore eyes, Master Richard,” he said; “it’s many a long day since thou was here to pester me with thy questions. And all’s strong again⁠—no bones broken? And now I’ll teach thee to make a galleon, like as I promised.”

“Will you, indeed?” said Dickie, trembling with joy and pride.

“That will I,” said the man, and