wborn baby and row over it, until it was
bruised black, cut off its hand, and leave it out in a bitter night
on the steps of a charity home, to the care of strangers? That's what
somebody did to me."

McLean stared aghast. He had no reply ready, and presently in a low
voice he suggested: "And after?"

"The Home people took me in, and I was there the full legal age and
several years over. For the most part we were a lot of little Irishmen
together. They could always find homes for the other children, but
nobody would ever be wanting me on account of me arm."

"Were they kind to you?" McLean regretted the question the minute it was
asked.

"I don't know," answered Freckles. The reply sounded so hopeless, even
to his own ears, that he hastened to qualify it by adding: "You see,
it's like this, sir. Kindnesses that people are paid to lay off in job
lots and that belong equally to several hundred others, ain't going to
be soaking into any one fellow so much."

"Go on," said McLean, nodding comprehendingly.

"There's nothing worth the taking of your time to tell," replied
Freckles. "The Home was in Chicago, and I was there all me life until
three months ago. When I was too old for the training they gave to the
little children, they sent me to the closest ward school as long as the
law would let them; but I was never like any of the other children, and
they all knew it. I'd to go and come like a prisoner, and be working
around the Home early and late for me board and clothes. I always wanted
to learn mighty bad, but I was glad when that was over.

"Every few days, all me life, I'd to be called up, looked over, and
refused a home and love, on account of me hand and ugly face; but it was
all the home I'd ever known, and I didn't seem to belong to any place
else.

"Then a new superintendent was put in. He wasn't for being like any of
the others, and he swore he'd weed me out the first thing he did. He
made a plan to send me down the State to a man he said he knew who
needed a boy. He wasn't for remembering to tell that man that I was a
hand short, and he knocked me down the minute he found I was the boy who
had been sent him. Between noon and that evening, he and his son close
my age had me in pretty much the same shape in which I was found in
the beginning, so I lay awake that night and ran away. I'd like to have
squared me account with that boy before I left, but I didn't dare for
fear of waking the old man, and I kne