The mother stepped forward and brushed the mud from Bobby's coat. The baby screwed up his face for a howl to call attention to his neglect in the midst of all this excitement. "What's this?" exclaimed Bobby, picking him up with as substantial an air of paternity as though he were forty. "What's this? Goneter cry afore a stranger?" He held the child up to Donaldson. "The kid," he announced laconically. "What yuh think of him?" [Illustration: _"The kid," he announced laconically. "What yuh think of him?"_] "Corker," answered Donaldson. "Let me hold him." "Sure. Get a chair for the gent, Sis." In another minute Donaldson found himself sitting by the kitchen stove with a chuckling youngster on his knee. No one paid any attention to him; just took him for granted as a friend until he felt as though he had been one of the family all his life. Besides, the centre of the stage rightly belonged to Bobby, who was occupying it with something of a swagger in his walk. "Well, I hope this will teach you a lesson, Bobby Wentworth," scolded the mother, now that after various proddings she had determined to her satisfaction that none of the boy's bones were broken. "I wish to the Lord you was back where the hills are so steep there ain't no automobiles." Donaldson broke in. "You were brought up in the country, Mrs. Wentworth?" "Laws, yes, and lived there most of my life." "In New England?" "Berringdon, Vermont." "Berringdon? Your husband was n't one of the Wentworth boys?" "He was Jim Wentworth, the oldest" "Well, well! Then _you_ are Sally Burnham." "And you," she hesitated, "I do b'lieve you 're Peter Donaldson." "Yes," he said, "I 'm Peter Donaldson." The name from her lips took on its boyhood meaning. He shifted the youngster to his arms and crossing the room held out his hand to her. "We did n't know each other very well in those days, but from now on--from now on we 're old friends, are n't we?" The steel blue eyes grew moist. "It's a long time," she said, "since I 've seen any one from there." "Or I. You left--" "When I was married. Jim came here because his cousin got him a job as motorman. He done well,--but he was killed by his car just after the baby was born." "Killed? That's tough. And it left you all alone with the children?" "Yes. The road paid us a little, but I was sick and the children were sick, so it did n't last long." She was not complaining. It was a bare recital of facts. But it raised a series of keen incisive thoughts in Donaldson's brain.