ther girls were frankly and openly crying and not
even noticing it.

"He--he must have been a darling!" cried Betty, unsteadily.

"He was," answered the old lady simply. "It wasn't very long after that he
ran away, and I suppose"--again her eyes sought the parade ground--"if I
was to meet him now I maybe wouldn't know him. You see, I'd still be
lookin' for my little brown-eyed, yellow-haired Willie boy."

"But what made him run away?" asked Mollie, rubbing her eyes furiously
with her handkerchief. "I shouldn't have thought--"

"Neither would I," the strange little woman interrupted abruptly. "If he
hadn't had such a high spirit he never would. But--well, seem like I'm
gettin' ahead of my story.

"You see, some o' the neighbors' children was a pretty wild lot an' they
always had a grudge against my boy 'cause he wouldn't join them in all
their escapades.

"You see, Willie took a lot after his father. He used to just like to sit
and dream and read books you'd thought a little fellow like him couldn't
understand at all--he was just twelve when he ran away.

"An' o' course these other boys, they didn't like him 'cause he was
different, an' they was always layin' the blame for all their pranks on
him.

"But my Willie, it didn't bother him much. He used to tell me that as long
as he knew he didn't do it and I knew it, what other folks thought wasn't
worth worryin' 'bout--just his pa all over.

"Only, I remember one time," the bent old form straightened up proudly and
the bright old eyes gleamed, "when the other boys started pushin' things
too far an' begun callin' my boy names--no names that a boy with any pride
in him would stand for--I heard them--they was jest around the back o' the
house, an' I came to the door with my mad up to the boilin' point, but
what I saw made me stop right short an' wait for what I knew was goin' to
happen.

"Willie, he was sittin' on a log by the barn, jest wrapped up in a new
book he'd found, an' it was some time before just what those ragamuffins
was sayin' seeped in. When it did was when I came to the door, boilin'
with rage.

"Very quiet, but with a sort o' bulldog set to that chin o' his, just
like his pa, he closed his book an' laid it down beside him.

"'I'll be askin' you,' he said, drawlin' very marked and facin' the bully
o' the crowd that was at least two or three years older than he was--'I'll
be askin' you to say what you been sayin' all over again.'

"The bully did,