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“What’s the matter with them, ha?” asked his master glancing down at the miserable apologies for shoes and stockings that but partially protected the child’s feet front the snow whenever he stepped beyond the threshold.

“They’re frosted, sir,” said Henry.

“Frosted, ha? Pull off your shoes and stockings, and let me see.”

Henry drew off an old shoe, tied on with various appliances of twine and leather strings; and then removed a stocking that, through many gaping holes, revealed the red and shining skin beneath. That little foot was a sight to pain the heart of any one but a cruel tyrant. The heel, in many places, was of a dark purple, and seemed as if mortification were already begun. And in some places it was cracked open, and exhibited running sores.

“Take off your other shoe and stocking,” said Sharp, in authoritative tone.

Henry obeyed, trembling all the while. This foot exhibited nearly the same marks of the progress of the painful disease.

“What have you done for it?” asked Sharp, looking Henry in the face with a scowl.

“Nothing but to put a little candle-grease on it at night before I went to bed,” replied the child.

“Come out here with me. I’ll doctor you,” said his master, turning away and disappearing through the back door. Henry followed as quickly as he could walk on his bare feet, that seemed ready to give way under him at ever step. When he got as far as the kitchen, he found Sharp waiting for him in the door.

“Here, jump out into that snow-bank!” said he, pointing to a pile of snow that had been shoveled up only that morning, after a fall through the night, and lay loose and high.

The poor boy looked down at his crippled, and, indeed, bleeding feet, and, as may well be supposed, hesitated to comply with the peremptory order.

“Do you hear, sir?” exclaimed his master, seizing him by the collar, and pushing him out into the yard. Then catching him by one arm, he set him in the centre of the snow-bank, his naked feet and legs going down into it some twelve or eighteen inches.

“Now stand there until I tell you to come out!”

The child did not scream, for he had already learned to bear pain without uttering even the natural language of suffering; although the agony he endured for the next minute was terrible. At the end of that time, a motion of the head of his master gave him to understand that the ordeal was over.

“Now take that bucket of cold water, and let him put his feet into it,” said he to a little girl they had just taken to raise, and who stood near the kitchen window, her heart almost ready to burst at the cruelty inflicted upon the only one in the house with whom she had a single feeling in common.

The girl quickly obeyed, and sat down on the floor beside the bucket of water. She handled tenderly the blood-red feet of the little boy, ever and anon looking up into his face, and noting with tender solicitude, the deep lines of suffering upon his forehead.

“There, that will do,” said Sharp, who stood looking on, “and now run up stairs and get a better pair of stockings for Henry.”

“What do you want with a better pair of stockings?” said Mrs. Sharp, a few moments after, bustling down into the kitchen.

“Why, I want them for Henry,” replied her husband.

“Want them for Henry!” she exclaimed, in surprise. “Where’s the ones he had on?”

“There are some old rags in the shop that he had on; but they won’t do now, with such feet as he’s got.”

“What’s the matter with his feet, I’d like to know,” inquired Mrs. Sharp.

“Why, they’re frosted.”

“Let him put them in snow, then. That’ll cure ‘em. It’s nothing but a little snow-burn, I suppose.”

“It’s something a little worse than that,” replied Sharp, “and he must have a comfortable pair of stockings. And here, Anna, do you run around to Stogies, and tell him to send me three or four pairs of coarse shoes, about Henry’s size.”

Anna, the little girl, disappeared with alacrity, and Mr. Sharp, turning to his wife, said:

“Henry must have a good, warm pair of stockings, or we shall have him sick on our hands.”

“Well, I’ll find him a pair,” replied Mrs. Sharp, going off up stairs. In the mean time, Henry still sat with his feet in the cold water. But the pain occasioned by the snow was nearly all gone. Mrs. Sharp came down with the stockings, and Anna came in with the shoes at the same moment. On lifting the child’s feet from the water, the redness and inflammation had a good deal subsided. Mrs. Sharp rubbed them with a little sweet oil, and then gave him the stockings to put on. He next tried the shoes; and one pair of them fitted him very well. But his feet were too sore and tender for such hard shoes; and when they were on, and tied up around the ankles, he found that after getting up they hurt him most dreadfully in his attempt to walk. But he hobbled, as best he could, into the shop.

“Throw them dirty things into the street!” were the only words addressed to him by Sharp, who pointed at his wet apologies for shoes and stockings, still lying upon the floor.

Henry did as directed, but every step he took was as if he were treading upon coals of fire. His feet, now enveloped in a closely fitting pair of woolen stockings, and galled by the hard and unyielding leather of the new shoes, itched and burned with maddening fervor.

“Here, carry this hat home,” said his master, as he came in from the street, not seeming to notice the expression of suffering that was on his face, nor the evident pain with which he walked.

Henry took the hat and started out. He was but a few paces from the shop, before he found that the shoes rubbed both heels, and pressed upon them at the same time so hard as to produce a sensation at each step as if the skin were torn off. Sometimes he would stop and wait a moment or two, until the intolerable pain subsided, and then he would walk on again with all the fortitude and power of endurance he could command. In this extreme suffering, the uppermost thought in his mind, when on the street, kept his eyes wandering about, and scanning every female form that came in sight, in the ever-living hope of seeing his mother. But the sigh of disappointment told too frequently, that he looked in vain. He had not proceeded far, when the pains in his feet became so acute that he paused, and leaned against a tree-box, unable for a time to move forward a single step. While resting thus, Doctor R—, who had been called to visit a patient in Lexington, came past and noticed him. There was something about the child, although so changed that he did not recognize him, that aroused the doctor’s sympathies, and he ordered his man to drive up to the pavement and stop.

“Well, my little man, what’s the matter?” said he, leaning out of his carriage window.

Henry looked up into his face, but did not reply. He knew Doctor R—instantly. How strong a hope sprang up in his heart—the hope of hearing from or being taken back to his mother! The kind-hearted physician needed no words to tell him that the little boy was suffering acutely. The flushed face, the starting eye, and the corrugation of the brow, were language which he understood as plainly as spoken words.

“What ails you, my little boy!” he said in a voice of tender concern.

The feelings of Henry softened under the warmth of true sympathy expressed in the countenance and tone of Doctor R—, and still looking him steadily in the face, essayed, but in vain, to answer the question.

“Are you sick, my boy?” asked the doctor, with real and increasing concern for the poor child.

“My feet hurt me so that I can hardly walk,” replied Henry, whose tongue at last obeyed his efforts to speak.

“And what ails your feet?” asked Doctor R—.

“They’ve been frosted, sir.”

“Frosted, indeed! poor child! Well, what have you done for them?”

“Nothing—only I greased them sometimes at night; and to-day my master made me stand in the snow.”