Mickey hurried back to his room. The milk bottle lay on the floor, the child asleep beside it. The boy gazed at her. There were strange and peculiar stirrings in his lonely little heart. She was so grimy he scarcely could tell what she looked like, but the grip of her tiny hot hands was on him. Presently he laughed. "Well fellers! Look what I've annexed! And I was hunting a dog! Well, she's lots better. She won't eat much more, she can talk, and she'll be something alive waiting when I come home. Gee, I'm _glad_ I found her." Mickey set the washtub on the floor near the sleeping child, and filling the dishpan with water, put it over the gasoline burner. Then he produced soap, a towel, and comb. He looked at the child again, and going to the box that contained his mother's clothing he hunted out a nightdress. Then he sat down to wait for the water to heat. The door slammed when he went after a bucket of cold water, and awakened the girl. She looked at him, then at his preparations. "I ain't going to be washed," she said. "It'll hurt me. Put me on the bed." "Put you on my bed, dirty like you are?" cried Mickey. "I guess not! You are going to be a soaped lady. If it hurts, you can be consoling yourself thinking it will be the last time, 'cause after this you'll be washed every day so you won't need skinning alive but once." "I won't! I won't!" she cried. "Now looky here!" said Mickey. "I'm the boss of this place. If I say wash, it's _wash!_ See! I ain't going to have a dirty girl with mats in her hair living with me. You begged me and begged me to bring you, now you'll be cleaned up or you'll go back. Which is it, back or soap?" The child stared at him, then around the room. "Soap," she conceded. "That's a lady," said Mickey. "Course it's soap! All clean and sweet smelling like a flower. See my mammy's nice white nightie for you? How bad is your back, Peaches? Can you sit up?" "A little while," she answered. "My legs won't go." "Never you mind," said Mickey. "I'll work hard and get a doctor, so some day they will." "They won't ever," insisted Peaches. "Granny carried me to the big doctors once, an' my backbone is weak, an' I won't ever walk, they all said so." "Poot! Doctors don't know everything," scorned Mickey. "That was _long_ ago, maybe. By the time I can earn enough to get you a dress and shoes, a doctor will come along who's found out how to make backs over. There's one that put different legs on a dog. I read about it in the papers I sold. We'll save our money and get him to put another back on you. Just a bully back." "Oh Mickey, will you?" she cried. "Sure!" said Mickey. "Now you sit up and I'll wash you like Mammy always did me." Peaches obeyed. Mickey soaped a cloth, knelt beside her; then he paused. "Say Peaches, when was your hair combed last?" "I don't know, Mickey," she answered. "There's more dirt in it than there is on your face." "If you got shears, just cut it off," she suggested. "Sure!" said Mickey.