AS for Johnny's mother, she kept on thinking, too, but she yielded, for the moment, to the inevitableness of her harvest. And of course the devotion, and the invitations to Philadelphia, and the summers in Old Chester continued. Johnny's bored good humor accepted them all patiently enough; "for she is kind," he reminded himself. "And I like _him_," he used to tell his aunt Lydia. Once he confided his feelings on this subject to William King: "They are queer folks, the Robertsons," Johnny said. "Why do they vegetate down here in Old Chester? They don't seem to know anybody but Aunt Lydia." William and the big fellow were jogging along in the doctor's shabby buggy out toward Miss Lydia's; she was very frail that summer and Johnny had insisted that William King should come to see her. "The Robertsons know _you_, apparently," the doctor said. "Well, yes," John said, "and they've been nice to me ever since I can remember." "G'on!" Doctor King told his mare, and slapped a rein down on Jinny's back. "But, Doctor King, they _are_ queer," Johnny insisted. "What's the milk in the coconut about 'em?" "Maybe a thunderstorm soured it." Johnny grinned, then he looked at Jinny's ears, coughed, and said, "I'd like to ask you a question, sir." "Go ahead." "When people are kind to you--just what do you owe 'em? I didn't ask them to be kind to me--I mean the Robertsons--but, holy Peter!" said Johnny, "they've given me presents ever since I was a child. They even had a wild idea of getting me to take their name! I said, 'No, thank you!' Why should I take their name? . . . Mrs. Robertson always seems sort of critical of Aunty. Think of that! Course she never says anything; she'd better not! If she did I'd raise Cain. But I _feel_ it," Johnny said, frowning. "Well, what I want to know is, what do you owe people who do you favors? Mind you, _I_ don't want their favors!" "Well," William ruminated, "I should say that we owe people who do us favors, the truth of how we feel about them. If the truth wouldn't be agreeable to them, don't accept the favors!" "Well, the 'truth' is that I get mad when Mrs. Robertson looks down on Aunty! Think of what she's stood for me!" the boy said, suddenly very red in the face. "When I was fifteen one of the fellows told me I was--was her son. I rubbed his nose in the mud." "Oh, that was how Mack got his broken nose, was it?" Doctor King inquired, much interested. "Well, I'm glad you did it. I guess it cured him of being _one_ kind of a fool. There was a time when I wanted to rub one or two female noses in the mud. However, they are really not worth thinking of, Johnny." "No," John agreed, "but anybody who looks cross-eyed in my presence at Aunt Lydia will get his head punched." "Amen," said William King, and drew Jinny in at Miss Lydia's gate.