Pattie Batch was vastly disappointed. She had fancied a girl. It was a shock, indeed, to her ardour. It was so much of a shocking disappointment that Pattie Batch might easily have wept. A boy--a _boy_! Oh, shoot! But still, she reflected, considering the scarcity, a boy--this boy, in fact, cleaned up--Pattie Batch was all the time running the mottled infant over with sharply appraising eyes--yes, the child had possibilities, unquestionably so, which soap and water might astonishingly improve--and, in fine, this little boy might-- "Mithuth Limp," said Pattie, looking that lady straight in the eye, "I'll give you twenty-five dollarth for thith here baby. By George, I will!" The astonished mother jumped out of her chair and her lassitude at the same instant. "Not another thent!" Pattie craftily declared. "Here--take your baby." Mrs. Limp did not quite _take_ the baby. That would be but a pale indication of the speed, directness and outraged determination with which she acted. She snatched the baby away, with the precision of a brisk woodpecker after an escaping worm; and she hugged it until it howled for mercy--and she hushed it--and she crooned endearment--and she kissed the baby with such fervour and persistency that she saved its puckered face a washing. And then she turned--in a rage of indignation--in a storm of scorn--in a whirlwind of execration--upon poor little Pattie Batch. But Pattie Batch was gone. Discreet little Pattie Batch didn't need to be _told_! Her little feet were already pattering over the trail to Swamp's End; and she was crying as she ran. * * * * * But Pattie Batch's wish for a baby went back to the very beginnings of things. Ask Gingerbread Jenkins. Gingerbread Jenkins knows. It was Gingerbread Jenkins who had found her, long ago--Pattie was little more than a baby herself, then--on the Bottle River Trail; and to Gingerbread Jenkins' astonishment the child was lugging a gun into the woods. "Where _you_ goin'?" says Gingerbread Jenkins. "Gunnin'." "Gunnin', eh? What for?" "Jutht gunnin'." "But what you gunnin' _for_?" "None o' your bithneth," says saucy little Pattie Batch. "It _is_ my business," Gingerbread Jenkins declared; "an' if you don't tell me what you're gunnin' for I'll have you home in a jiffy." "Well," says Pattie, "I'm--gunnin'." "What for?" "Storks," says Pattie. "Goin' t' _kill_ 'em?" Gingerbread inquired. "No," says Pattie. "What's your gun for?" "I'm goin' t' wing a couple," says Pattie, "an' tame 'em." That was Pattie Batch. [Illustration] _A GIFT NEGLECTED_