"Who'll there be to eat our dinner with us to-morrow, William Thayer?" he questioned whimsically. Caroline moved nearer and put her hand on his knee. "There'll be--won't there be me?" she begged. He shook his head. "I guess not," he said bluntly. Her eyes filled with tears. "But--but you said I was a--a regular little chum," she whispered. "Don't you like me?" He was silent: "Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. "I don't _need_ much to eat, really!" The lad looked at her with a strange longing. The fatherhood that lives in every boy thrilled at the touch of her fat little hand on his knee; the comradely glow in her round brown eyes warmed his restless, lonely heart. He shook her off almost roughly. "I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," he said grimly. "I wish I could take you with me--honest, I do. But you better stay home and go to school. You don't want to grow up ignorant, and have your folks ashamed of you." "But you--you aren't ignorant!" she urged warmly, her admiration shining in her eyes. He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass. "I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, dear, I wish--I wish--" They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain. "You're a girl," he began again, "and girls can't; they just can't. They have to stay with their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too. You'd miss 'em nights." Caroline winced, but could not deny. "Oh," she cried passionately, "why do girls have to do _all_ the missing? It's just what that Simms boy says: 'If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be a dog!'" "There, there," he said soothingly, "just think about it. You'll see. And you're not exactly like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice." He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay quietly against the bank. Her breathing grew slow and regular; raising himself cautiously on one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her arm about William Thayer, her dusty boots pathetically crossed. He watched her tenderly, with frequent glances up and down the road. Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded around a bend, and a clattering wagon drew steadily nearer. The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and strode angrily toward the little group. "I've caught you, have I, you young----" "'Sh!" The boy put up a warning hand. "She's fast asleep," he whispered. "Are you goin' to take her home?" The man stared. "Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly. "Here, just lift her soft with me, and I'll bet we can put her in without waking her up at all." Without a word, the man slipped his hands under Caroline's shoulders, the boy lifted her dusty boots, and gently unloosing her arm from the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully to the wagon and laid her on the clean straw in the bottom, her head on a folded coat. She stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured broken words, and sank yet deeper into her dream. The man pointed to a book on the seat.