ness itself when, her dress
changed, she sallied forth to set to work on the wash. That this task
had something to do with her lack of sweet temper never occurred to
Johnnie, whose opinion of girls had received another setback. As he
watched her drag forward the tub and fall to rubbing, he half-way made
up his mind to wait his chance, take the apple out of that old box, and
eat it! He sat at the window, counting the stars as they came into his
rectangle of faded blue, and was glad that he now had a dog. A girl
around the house was so unsatisfactory!

Next day, with Cis's wash swinging overhead in a long, white line, he
finished _Aladdin_ and took up _Robinson Crusoe_. And with the new book
there opened to him still another life. Swiftly the palaces of Cathay
melted away. And Johnnie, in company with several fighting men, was
pacing the deck of a storm-tossed ship, with a savage-infested shore to
lee. Gun in hand, he peered across the waves to a spit of sand upon
which black devils danced.

By nightfall, what with fast reading, and by skipping many a paragraph
which was pure description, the oilcloth table was a lonely island
inhabited by no human being, the morris chair was the good ship
stranded, with all on board lost except Crusoe and Johnnie, who, while
the seas dashed over them, roaring, breathlessly salvaged for their
future use (Johnnie's hurt arm was out of its sling all this time) the
mixed contents of the kitchen cupboard.

Big Tom interrupted this saving of provender. And Crusoe's friend was
curtly ordered to wash some potatoes for supper, and lay the plates, and
not leave everything for Cis to do. The order was accompanied by that
warning flash of white in Barber's left eye. It brought to an end
Johnnie's period of convalescence.

That night he did more pondering as he lay on his mattress beside the
cookstove, his eyes looking far away to the three stars framed by the
window sash, and the dog asleep at his side. He had always done much
thinking, being compelled to it by loneliness. Now he took stock of
himself, and came to the conclusion that he was not like other boys.

Being the only blond-haired boy in the area building had something to do
with it. Having to do housework had more. Then he had none of the
possessions which the other boys of his own age treasured--bats, and
balls, "scooters," roller skates, yes, even water pistols.

Being different from other boys, he could not, he decided, do as they