"Then they talked some more and the lady kept saying, 'but the bank will send it--they'll send it every year as long as she's alive.' And the man said, 'She'll be alive all right.' Then the lady gave him some papers and told me to come along. And we went to a funny house where there was a yellow kitten with white and black spots on it. I liked that kitty. I wanted to stay there. But the lady told me to go with the cross man. And he took me in a car'age for a long ride. And when we got out of the car'age there was another man. This little boy was with him and the little boy was afraid, but I wasn't afraid. The man made me take hold of his other hand and we walked and walked and walked until we came here. Does that man live here? I don't like this place. I want to go home." Maria stood aghast. Never in her life had she listened to so much conversation at one time. Not half of it percolated her dull wits. Luckily Peter had gone direct to the hog pen, for as yet he was without an assistant in the discharge of his farm duties. The small boy destined to fill that position stood mutely by the side of his chattering companion while she unfolded the most recent events of her short life. He was a mild-faced, dreamy-eyed lad with a mass of fair hair. How he had fallen into the clutches of Peter Grimes was to him a mystery beyond solution. Though his lips quivered he set his teeth and bravely forced back the tears that welled to his eyes at sight of the bleak, shadow-filled kitchen into which Maria now led them. With a howl of rage a fat child, twice the size of little Mollie, rose from the floor and struck wildly at the newcomers with his pudgy fists. "Hyar, yo' Ambrose, quit that," drawled Maria, stretching forth an arm meant to be restraining but which proved no more effectual than a shadow. "This hyar boy an' girl has come ter play with yo'." The howl of rage suddenly changed to a bawl of anguish. Maria gathered her son to her flat bosom. "What is ut, honey," she asked. "Did a bee sting yo'?" The fat child blubbered something which the mother interpreted as, yes. She sought vainly for the bee. "Ambrose es only four years old," she explained to the other children. "He's powerful peart fer his age. Yo' young uns better be keerful how yo' all treat him or his paw'll skin yo' alive. G'long now. Set up ter th' table an' eat yore cawn pone. Then yo' better git ter bed es fast es yo' kin." The blue-eyed boy's name was Stephen. Mollie tried to repeat it after him and failed. Her little tongue, otherwise fluent, found the strange name so difficult to pronounce that she gave it up. "I talk just as you do--I splutter," she cried, laughing at her efforts. "But--but----" commenced the lad. "There you go, again," Mollie exclaimed, triumphantly pointing her diminutive finger at him. "Can't you say anything without spluttering?"