"What!" he roared, driving in his spade, and beginning to dig with all
his might.
"Mr Brownsmith's going to send me away."
"Old Brownsmith's going to send you away?"
"Yes."
"Why, what have you been a-doin' of?" he cried more fiercely than ever,
as he drove his spade into the earth.
"Nothing at all."
"He wouldn't send you away for doing nothing at all," cried Ike, giving
an obstinate clod that he had turned up a tremendous blow with his
spade, and turning it into soft mould.
"I'm to go to Hampton with Mr Brownsmith's brother," I said, "to learn
all about glass-houses."
"What, Old Brownsmith's brother Sol?"
"Yes," I said sadly, as I petted and caressed the cat.
"He's a tartar and a tyrant, that's what he is," said Ike fiercely, and
he drove in his spade as if he meant to reach Australia.
"But he understands glass," I said.
"Smash his glass!" growled Ike, digging away like a machine.
"I'm going to-day," I said after a pause, and with all a boy's longing
for a sympathetic word or two.
"Oh! are you?" he said sulkily.
"Yes, and I don't know when I shall get over here again."
"Course you don't," growled Ike, smashing another clod. I stood patting
the cat, hoping that Ike would stretch out his great rough hand to me to
say "Good-bye;" but he went on digging, as if he were very cross.
"I didn't know it till to-day, Ike," I said.
"Ho!" said Ike with a snap, and he bent down to chop an enormous
earthworm in two, but instead of doing so he gave it a flip with the
corner of his spade, and sent it flying up into a pear-tree, where I saw
it hanging across a twig till it writhed itself over, when, one end of
its long body being heavier than the other, it dropped back on to the
soft earth with a slight pat.
Still Ike did not speak, and all at once I heard Old Brownsmith's voice
calling.
"I must go now, Ike," I said, "I'll come back and say `Good-bye.'"
"And after the way as I've tried to make a man of yer," he said as if
talking to his mother earth, which he was chopping so remorselessly.
"It isn't my fault, Ike," I said. "I'll come over and see you again as
soon as I can."
"Who said it war your fault?"
"No one, Ike," I said humbly. "Don't be cross with me."
"Who is cross with yer?" cried Ike, cleaning his spade.
"You seemed to be."
"Hah!"
"I will come and see you again as soon as I can," I repeated.
"Nobody don't want you," he growled.
"Grant!"
"Coming, sir," I shouted back, and then I turned to Ike, who dug away as
hard as ever he could, without looking at me, and with a sigh I hurried
off, feeling that I must have been behaving very ungratefully to him.
Then there was a sense as of resentment as I thought of how calmly
everybody seemed to take my departure, making me think that I had done
nothing to win people's liking, and that I must be a very unpleasant,
disagreeable kind of lad, since, with the exception of Mrs Dodley and
the cat, nobody seemed to care whether I went away or stayed.