Pa turned an angry face around on his wife. “Be them two children crazy?” he demanded. At that moment three children instead of two shot their heads up above the dark green of the wild gooseberry bushes. There was Jim’s freckled, grinning phiz, Azalea’s long, lovely face, smiling, too, and the dark, odd little face of the show boy, Hi Kitchell. “Well, what do you think of that?” groaned pa. “He sneaked, pa,” Jim explained at the top of his voice. “When them show folks lit out, he just sneaked. Wasn’t he the ’cute one?” “Goodness, ma, are we going to start an orphan asylum?” pa asked under his breath. “Might do worse,” answered ma. But Hi was not an orphan, but a young man out for himself, and after he had got into the wagon with the others and all were rolling once more toward Lee, he made that plain. “I went straight to Mr. Hitchcock at the mill,” said he, “and told him I wanted to go to work. He said he’d take me on next Monday. Well, that was all right, only I didn’t have a cent in my pocket, but I someway didn’t like to tell him that. So I went down town, looking around, and the funniest thing you ever heard of, happened to me.” “What?” demanded the other four at once. “Well, there was a gentleman come riding in on horseback, and he had a little dog with him, a terrier. He was an awful cute little dog, and when the man went in the post office, I got to playing with him. The puppy didn’t know a trick—not a trick. Just plain ignorant, he was. The man was in the office a long time, so I got to teaching that dog some of the things he ought to know, and by and by the man come out and he see me, and he said I was giving that there dog the kind of schooling he ought to have.” “Sho!” said pa. “Then he up and asked me where I lived and whose boy I was, and I told him the whole story.” “That was right,” said ma gently. “That was just what you ought to do, Hi.” “And that gentleman said if I wanted I could come up to his house and sleep in the barn, and have my meals at the house till I got my first pay from the mill, all for teaching his dog tricks. So I went up and I’ve been staying there.” “You don’t seem to be there now,” broke in pa. “Not so’s you could notice it.” “Why,” cried the boy, “I had to come and tell you-all, didn’t I? I thought you-all would be wanting to know.” “We do; sure we do,” ma said, reaching forward to pat the boy on the shoulder. “Pa’s just as glad as any one, Hi. Don’t you let him fool you, the way he speaks.” “No’em.” “I don’t see no especial reason for rejoicing that a poor little boy is going to be shut up in that mill,” growled pa. “Hain’t I heard the whistles blowing at five, dark mornings and all, rousting them young uns out of bed? And ain’t I seen ’em trudging home after dark come? All the day gone by, and no good to them! No, you don’t get no celebration out of me over any child or chick getting in that there mill!”