“Say, you’re awful smart, ain’t you?” he asked after a moment of observation, and Miss Tarbox, somewhat overwhelmed did not reply. He placed his elbow on his round knee and his chin on his small hand and stared a few moments in silence. “It looks awful kinder nice the way you hold up your head. Now, my aunt, she kinder slumps along. She’s a real nice woman, you know, but she don’t look’s though she had much gumption.” Another silence. “Say, what kin I do?” he asked next. “Mercy on us!” ejaculated Miss Lucinda, “don’t ask me. I thought you were going to roast potatoes.” “I thought p’r’aps you might be kinder lonesome all alone, and I’d jest as soon help you wash up. I’m useter it. I kin make beds and sweep and wash dishes and do lots o’ things. Try me and see.” “Thank you, I can get along very well; you needn’t help,” Miss Lucinda said in grim accents of dismissal but the boy did not move. “I s’pose you’re pretty busy,” he ventured presently. “Well, yes, rather,” Miss Lucinda answered shortly. “Do you usually have a real good time Fourth o’ July?” he went on. Miss Lucinda gasped. “Well, no. I can’t say I do,” she answered in mournful truthfulness. “Now that’s funny,” the boy said, in a surprised tone. “Seem’s though the country’d be an awful nice place to have a good time in, Fourth o’ July. Mebbe it’s ’cause you never had nobody to cel’brate with; but you will this year. You’ll have a real nice time, too; I always enjoy Fourth o’ July.” Miss Lucinda gave a feeble sigh. “What do you usually do Fourth o’ July?” she asked, with the desire to learn her coming fate. “Well, last year I had one bunch o’ firecrackers that got fired off the very first thing. I thought mebbe this year I’d earn ’nough money to buy two bunches; d’you think I could?” “Well, really, I don’t know,” Miss Lucinda said. “And last year I went to see the percession, and the crowd jammed me, and I didn’t see nothin’; but this year they’re goin’ to have a percession out here, and that feller asked me to be in it. D’you suppose I could?” “I don’t know,” Miss Lucinda answered again. “They’re goin’ to have reg’lar uniforms, red, white, and blue”—evidently the boy took this as half consent—“and it’s goin’ to be jest great. I s’pose it’d be a good deal o’ trouble to make me a uniform, seein’s you’re so busy?” “A soldier suit? Dear me, yes, I should say so!” There was no doubt now in Miss Lucinda’s tones. The boy drew a deep breath as he rose to go. “All right,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll tell the fellers; p’r’aps they’ll let me march, jest the same.” When supper-time came and Miss Lucinda rang her bell again out the door, she saw the boy coming along the path from the barn, helping Joshua, the man-of-all-work, bring in the brimming pail of milk. “Supper is ready,” Miss Lucinda said, and this time the boy washed his hands without special order.