Neither Pet nor the young man saw the awkward figure of an overgrown boy, who had followed them at a distance, on the other side of the street, keeping the trunks of trees between them and him. This clumsy figure, upon which a suit of good clothes and a new cap looked strangely out of place, was Bog.
The boy Bog was often seen lounging about the neighborhood of Miss Pillbody's school; and if the policeman on that beat had not known him to be an honest lad from childhood, he would have watched him as a suspicious character. From whatever part of the city Bog came home after a bill-posting expedition, he invariably made a circuit past Miss Pillbody's school, keeping the other side of the street always, and never looking at the house. He walked hurriedly by, but came to a sudden stop at a grocery store halfway up the second block beyond, and there he would stand, partly covered by an awning post, and look strangely around, letting his eyes fall occasionally, and as if by accident, on that house. If his object in these singular manoeuvres was to see Miss Minford, he always failed to improve the opportunity when it offered; for, as surely as Pet came out from the school, or turned into the street to go toward it, so surely did the boy Bog walk off whistling in another direction. Nobody can understand the motives of Bog's conduct, except those who have done the same thing in their youthful days.
On this eventful afternoon (eventful as a starting point in a history of sorrows), Bog had taken his usual circuitous route home from a profitable professional tour on the east side of town. Reaching the grocery store, he sheltered himself behind the friendly post, and commenced looking up and down the street, and across the way, and into the sky, always winding up his mysterious observations by a single glance at Miss Pillbody's front door. When Pet came out, after her musical exercise, the boy Bog flushed up a little, turned upon his heels, and walked quickly away. He had not gone a dozen steps, before the shouts of the workmen and the sound of the first falling board reached his ears. He suddenly turned about, and saw a young man catching the next board that fell. His first impulse was to run to Pet's assistance; but a fatal spell chained his feet.
Poor Bog had dreamed a thousand times, by night and by day, of the ineffable bliss of rescuing Pet from a mad dog, from a runaway horse, from the assault of ruffians, from drowning, from a burning building. He had his plans all laid for doing every one of these things. He would have coveted the pleasure of whipping three times his weight of any well-dressed, white-handed young men, who should presume to insult her. In imagination, he had done it times without number; and had contrived a private method to double up a number of effeminate antagonists in succession. But, in all his reveries, he had never anticipated peril to Miss Minford from a falling board; nor had it occurred to him that the supreme felicity of saving her from death or injury would ever be the lot of anybody else.
The entire novelty of the accident and rescue struck him with amazement, and fastened him to the spot long enough to see that Pet walked away apparently unhurt. Hardly knowing what he did, or why he did it, he shifted his body behind the awning post so as continually to keep himself out of Pet's sight. Then the strong conviction came upon him that it was his duty to escort Pet home; for, although she did not seem to be hurt, she might be. This conviction was met and almost put down by the thought that Pet would know he had been watching for her; and he could not bear that. While he was halting and sweating between these two opinions, the unknown young man had finished his little colloquy with the four carpenters, and, by walking fast, had caught up with Pet.
Then the boy Bog decided that his wisest course, under all the circumstances, would be to follow the couple at a distance, and see that no harm came to her from the young man.
"If the feller insults her," murmured Bog, "just because he was lucky enough to do her a little bit of a kindness, I'll lick him till he's blue." Besides whipping him for the insults which he might offer, Bog felt that he could give him a few good blows for his impudence in assuming Bog's exclusive prerogative of rescuing that particular young girl.
Bog looked very sheepish as he sneaked from one street corner to another, and skulked in shadows to avoid observation, though he tried to flatter himself that he was doing something highly meritorious. Two or three times, when the unknown young man inclined his head toward Pet, as if to speak to her, Bog entertained a hope that she would command him to leave her, and that he wouldn't. A single gesture from her, an impatient shrug of the shoulders, a turning away of her head, would have been all the hint that Bog needed to fly to her relief, and make up for his lost opportunity by knocking his dandy rival into the gutter.
But not even Bog's sharp eyes could detect any impudent familiarity in the young man's conduct, or any desire on the part of Pet to get rid of him. "Everything is agin' me," said Bog, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
When Bog saw Pet part from the young man at Mr. Minford's door, his first wild idea was to call on her, quite by accident, in the course of half an hour. Perhaps she would tell him--as a piece of startling news--about her narrow escape from the board, and what the young man said to her. But Bog was unequal to the dissimulation involved in this plan, and abandoned it. Then he had a notion of following the young man, and seeing what became of him. But a sudden and very decided rising of fresh blood to Bog's cheeks and ears told him that he had played the part of spy long enough. So Bog determined--as many grown-up people in graver dilemmas do--to go home to supper.
Bog found his supper all ready for him, and it was a good one. For his aunt, although the victim of a chronic rheumatism, had contrived to preserve a sharp appetite from the wreck of her former health, and cooked three meals for herself and two for Bog (who was never home at noon) daily. She was singularly punctual, too. Breakfast was always smoking hot on the table at 6 A.M.; and supper (and dinner combined, for Bog) was never a minute behind 5 P.M. in the winter time. Bog, who had a truly boyish idea of feminine excellencies, considered that this knack of cooking, and this amazing punctuality, were more than an offset for his aunt's little infirmities of temper, and her everlasting discourse on the rheumatics.
Though the beef hash was good, and the toast nicely browned and buttered, and the tea strong, and the fire burning brightly through the grates of the stove, and the curtains snugly drawn, and everything cheerful and comfortable in Bog's humble home, the boy was unhappy, and could not eat.
Happily, his aunt was so engrossed with her own physical troubles, that she never noticed indications of ill health in other people. She held that every other human ailment was unworthy of mention in the presence of her sovereign affliction. Whenever anybody presumed to speak of their little personal sufferings before her, she said: "You should thank Heaven you haven't got the rheumatics," and would then proceed to give a circumstantial history of her acquaintance with that disease. Therefore, on this occasion, she was quite unaware that poor Bog sat opposite to her with a pale, dejected face, playing aimlessly on his plate with his knife and fork. She thought only, and talked only, of her malady, which had been pranking in the oddest manner all day, and had settled, at last, in her "limbs." Bog's aunt had no legs that she would own to.
After supper, Bog heaved a sigh, and said that he would go round to Uncle Ith's; and asked his aunt if she had any word to send by him.
"Oh, no; nothing partickler," said she. "He don't care about me."
Uncle Ith, as everybody called him, was Bog's uncle on his mother's side. Uncle Ith and the aunt had a standing difference touching that rheumatism. Whenever they met--which was rarely--Uncle Ith would ask her, with a wink, how she was; and when she candidly told him that she was in a dreadful state, he would laugh at her, and say that half of it was "imagination." This indignity he had repeated so often, that, latterly, she scorned to complain in his presence, and bore her anguish in noble silence.
"All right," said Bog, who took no part in these family differences. He put on his cap, and left the house.