Eli knew how to shake hands. When he slipped his palm against Paddy’s warm one, he smiled up at the red, grinning face. Eli instinctively knew he could trust this man.
“I’m Elijah. I’m five… I think,” he answered, standing. “I have to check on my ma.”
The big paw sat heavily on his shoulder. “I’m afraid ye can’t help her now, boyo.”
The fear came rushing back, filling his chest, stealing his air. Eli had seen eyes like his ma’s before. The dog that got hit by a wagon. A man who had been sitting on the steps of their boarding house last winter.
Too drunk to make it up the stairs. Froze to death on the stoop, his father had said with a shake of his head.
“She’s dead.” It wasn’t a question. Eli knew even before Paddy nodded.
He began to cry, softly at first. Then loud wails, tears streaming down his cheeks, onto his chin, then dripping down his neck. Paddy set Eli on his lap and wrapped his bear-like arms around his body, rocking him back and forth. He cried for his mother, for his father who had pretended to love him, for being abandoned, for not being good enough to make his Pa want to stay. He cried until he had no more tears and no more energy to be sad. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep in the warm, comforting embrace of a giant.
***
Eli woke on a cot in a strange room. It was a dark room with a small hearth and shelves on the walls. There was a table with a platter of bread and a bowl of… butter? He heard the murmur of voices beyond the door. Throwing off the blanket, he inched toward the table, waiting for someone to rush in and tell him not to touch the food.
No one did, so he took one of the slices and dipped it into the bowl of butter. He closed his eyes and chewed. It was like food sent from heaven. The bread was not stale or chewy, the butter not oily.
“What in heavens will we do with him?”
Eli’s attention turned back to the door. The workhouse. Pa had taken him there a couple of times when he was little. The place where boys went when no one wanted them anymore. Who would want Eli now? He dipped another corner of the bread into the butter and crammed it all into his mouth, then ran into the public room.
His eyes darted about the room. He saw a mop and a bucket. Eli ran to it, swallowed the last of his meal, and yelled, “I’m real strong. I can work. See?”
***
Paddy watched the pale, blond boy try to pick up a mop. The handle was a good head taller than the lad. Holding it like a jousting lance, Eli pushed it into the bucket and managed to get it back onto the floor, spilling water everywhere. Paddy’s heart cracked a little.
The thin shoulders moved back and forth as he mopped, an urgency to his actions. When the boy swished the mop into the bucket again, he splashed his shoes. There was a hole in the toe on both feet. All three adults stared at it, and the lad’s eyes followed.
“Don’t worry,” Eli cried, sitting on the wet floor to pull off his shoe. He walked with one bare foot to the large fireplace, a large wet spot spreading across the back of his coat, and set the pitiful piece of leather on the stone floor. “I won’t get sick. Ma always said I’m real healthy.” Panic sounded in the shrillness of his young voice as he pleaded, “You’ll see.”
When he returned to the bucket to continue mopping, Paddy couldn’t stand it any longer. “Come here, boyo. That can wait.”
It was well past midnight, and the tavern was closed. Maggie would be worried about him, but there had been the woman’s body to take care of. And the boy to deal with. Paddy knew Max and Martha couldn’t take the waif on. They’d just had a babe of their own and were only now turning a profit after buying The Dog’s Bone. The last orphanage Paddy had seen wasn’t much better than the workhouse.
“Don’t send me to the workhouse,” Eli blurted out as if reading Paddy’s mind. His small hands fidgeted with the frayed hem of his coat. “I’m strong. I can do anything you want.”
“I have no doubt.” Once the boy stood before him, Paddy picked him up and set him on his lap. “Ye’ll have to be brave with yer mother gone.”
Eli blinked. His hazel eyes, bright with unshed tears, turned more brown than green. “But not at the workhouse? I can be brave anywhere but there.”
“No, not at the workhouse.” Paddy sucked in a breath and asked the next question. “Do ye know where yer father is?”
The boy shook his head, eyes glinting with anger now, his chin stuck out. “Back to his other family. He said he couldn’t pay for us anymore.”
A fist of ice gripped Paddy’s chest. The worthless piece of horse dung. The lad was a by-blow. Who had his mother been? Eli’s speech wasn’t that of a street urchin. One of his parents had some education. Paddy gave Max and Martha, The Dog’s Bone owners, a questioning look. Martha nodded with a smile of relief.
“Your Maggie would want ye to,” she said, her brown eyes sparkling. “Another unfortunate set in your path.”
Paddy gazed down at the scrawny boy in front of him. “Weel, I t’ink my wife is in need of a helper. Someone to help in the kitchen, feed and brush the dog, run errands for her. Would ye be interested in coming home with me?”
The boy’s trusting eyes held Paddy’s steady, and then he nodded solemnly. “Yes, sir.”
“Ye’ll have three other boys to tend with. D’ye mind having brothers?” he asked, holding back a grin when the boy’s eyes grew wide.
“You mean like a family?” Eli asked quietly.
