He was here four months, and then a pal wrote him he could get him a job as handy man with a small circus then in Vermont. But Dan'l's beloved vagabond hadn't a sou, and before he could tramp there, the show would be far on its southern way. Naturally, the Deacon refused a loan--I can just see the way his mouth would snap shut like a trap, but Dan'l, what with egg money and his tiny garden, and errand money from summer boarders, had gathered together twenty slow dollars, and he came lavishly forward. The rover blithely promised to pay him back in two monthly payments. He's never sent a penny. He wrote once; Danny showed me the letter, worn with many rapt readings,--a silly, flowing hand which looks as if it had been done up in curl papers over night--and explained that he'd been sick, and had to buy clothes, but next month, _sure_! And Dan'l was a sport and true blue and a little old pal, and he'd never forget him. Dan'l's "bein' so puny" saved him the whole brunt of his father's rage, but this sneering scorn has been harder to bear,--and the amazing part of it is that the boy doesn't really care about the money,--lean little Islander though he is. That is merely the symbol of his friend's good faith. "Ef only he'd jest write 'n tell me things," he sighed, "th' money c'd wait. He needs it worse'n I do." Meanwhile, with eternal-springing hope in his little flat chest he trots down to the graveyard corner every day, and every day Uncle Robert says, with a cheery chirp in italics, "Wall, not _to-day_, Dan'l!" The child is getting thinner and paler, now the sharp weather is coming. His father wrote a laborious letter by the lamp, one evening, and a week later a good gruff old doctor came over from the mainland and chaffed Danny about his pup and told him to play in the sun and drink plenty of milk and not to fret about school this year. I waylaid him privately and asked if there was anything I could get or do--a tonic, a change. He patted my shoulder and said, "Land t'goodness, no! That youngun's been a-dying ever since I borned him, fourteen years ago. He warn't meant for old bones." Oh, Michael Daragh, I can't stand it--poor little Daniel in a Lion's Den of broken faith, and scorn, and creeping death! What can I _do_? J. V. CHAPTER X But it was well into October before the Irishman got the letter which he had been waiting for--the one which sent the color mounting gladly in his lean cheeks. It was not long, but it fairly sang with jubilance and the feel of it in his hand was warm. _On a Gold and Scarlet Afternoon._ Michael Daragh, I'm at work! Steadily, sanely, surely, at work again!