He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded. He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold. "Come up here!" cried Mun Bun, beckoning to the strange boy. "Come up here!" The boy in the snow seemed scarcely to understand. Or else he was so cold and exhausted that he could not immediately get up from the step on which he was sitting. CHAPTER III UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW The fluffy, sticky snowflakes gathered very fast upon the colored boy's clothing. As Mun Bun had first announced, he looked like a snowman, only his face was grayish-black. He was slim, and when he finally stood up at the bottom of the house steps, he seemed to waver just like a slim reed in the fierce wind that drove the snowflakes against him. He hesitated, too. It seemed that he scarcely knew whether it was best to mount the steps to Aunt Jo's front door or not. "Come up here!" cried Mun Bun again, and continued to beckon to him through the glass of the outer door. Margy held up her coat and cap, and beckoned to the boy also. He looked much puzzled as he slowly climbed the steps. His lips moved and the children knew he asked: "What yo' want of me, child'en?" Mun Bun tugged at the outer door eagerly, and finally it flew open. He shouted in the face of the driving snow: "Come in here, snowman. Come in here!" "I ain't no snowman," drawled the colored boy. "But I sure is as cold as a snowman could possibly be." "It's warmer inside here than it is out there," Margy said. "Although we're not any too warm. Our steampipes don't hum. But you come in." "Yes," said Mun Bun, grabbing at the colored boy's cold, wet hand. "You come in here. We have some coats and things you can put on so you won't be cold." "Ma goodness!" murmured the boy, staring at the garments the children held out to him. "You can wear 'em," said Margy. "We have more." "You put on my coat," urged Mun Bun. "It's a boy's coat. You won't want Margy's, for she's a girl." "Ma goodness!" ejaculated the colored boy again, "what yo' child'en s'pose I do wid dem t'ings? 'Less I puts 'em up de spout?" The two children hadn't the first idea as to what he meant by putting the clothing up the spout. But the colored boy meant that he might pawn them and get some money. He did not offer to take the coats and other things that Margy and Mun Bun tried to put into his hands. Just at this moment Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo, followed by Russ and Rose, appeared on the stairs. They had missed the two little folks and, as Aunt Jo had said, wrinkling her very pretty nose, that she could "just smell mischief," they had all come downstairs to see what the matter was. The colored boy spied them. He had evidently been ill used by somebody, for he was very much frightened. He thrust the coats back at the children and turned to get out of the vestibule.