in the parlor. In her
kitchen was a great cookstove called "The Black Diamond," which seemed
like some live thing, for it had four claw-shaped feet, and seven
isinglass eyes ranged in a blazing row upon a flat face. Under the eyes
were toothlike bars forming a grate. These seemed always to be grinning
hotly. Often when the stove was fed with the ebony lumps that Aunt
Sophie said it loved, its burning breath was delicious. Then Johnnie's
aunt, half doubled above it, drew out of it rich, brown roasts, and pies
that oozed nectar; or ladled up fragrant soups and golden doughnuts.

Johnnie described how grandly he had lived at Aunt Sophie's. He had
slept in soft, white night clothes. Always, when he waked, Aunt Sophie
had pulled him out of these and dropped him into a big tub of warm
water, then rubbed him pink with a large, shaggy towel. Sometimes Uncle
Albert took him for a run in one of the millionaire's huge, glistening
cars.

His last memory of the garage had to do with the clanging ambulance
that took Aunt Sophie to the hospital. Johnnie never saw her again, for
she died there; and it was after her death that Tom Barber clambered up
the straight, steep flight of stairs that led from the street door. When
he went down it, Johnnie was with him, clinging to one of Big Tom's
thumbs.

"Then I reckon Mister Barber's a relative," said One-Eye.

"Only by marriage," declared Cis. She was certain of that.

"But why'd he bother takin' a kid that is no relation?" persisted the
Westerner.

Cis smiled wisely. "Work," she answered laconically.

One-Eye understood. "And who was the rich gent?" he asked.

Johnnie could not remember the name. "But once," he told proudly, "he
left a' orange for me, and I used it like a ball till the skin busted."

"Y' know what street that was on, don't y'?" inquired the cowboy.

Yes, Johnnie knew that. The street was West Fifty-fifth.

"And what about your mother?" One-Eye wanted to know.

"Well, I had one--once," declared Johnnie. "I'm sure of that. And she's
dead." Also at one time he had possessed a father, who was dead, too.
"My father and my mother," he informed the cowboy, "died the same day."

That single eye opened wide at this news. "The same day?" One-Eye
demanded.

"Drownded," said Johnnie. Though how and where he could not tell, and
did not even know his father's name, which Cis felt sure was not Smith.

"I thought as much!" remarked their visitor, wisely. "And what about