s
my last word." He sat down.

Mr. Maloney got up, a worried expression on his face. "I'll have to let
the matter stand as it is for a while," he admitted quietly. "This year
the city's got more public charges than it knows what to do with--so
many men out of work, and so much sickness these last months. And as you
say, the boy isn't ignorant."

When he went, he left the paper behind; and that evening Johnnie read it
from the first page to the last, advertisements and all. Big Tom saw him
poring over it, but said nothing (the boy's reading on the sly had
proved a good thing for the longshoreman). Johnnie, realizing that he
was seen, but that his foster father did not roar an objection, or jerk
the paper from his hands, or blow out the light, was grateful, and felt
suddenly less independent.

But what he did not realize was that, by reading as well as he had, he
had hurt his own chances of being sent to public school.

CHAPTER XV

SCOUTS

WHEN, toward the latter part of March, the days were so warm that
Johnnie was able once more to take short, daily walks, he never went
without bringing home a box to split up for kindling. The box was an
excuse. And he wanted the excuse, not to ease his conscience about
leaving Grandpa alone, but to save himself should Big Tom happen home
and find him gone.

So far as Grandpa was concerned, the feeble veteran scarcely seemed to
know any more whether he was alone or not, there being small difference
between the flat without Johnnie and the flat with Johnnie if Johnnie
had a book. But also Grandpa always had some one else with him now--some
one who comforted his old heart greatly. This was Letitia.

Grandpa had always shown much fondness for the old doll. And one
day--soon after Cis received the new one--when Johnnie chanced to give
Letitia into the hands of the old man, the latter was so happy that
Johnnie had not taken Letitia away, and Cis had not. Instead, she gave
the old doll to Grandpa. And so it came about that Letitia shared the
wheel chair, where she lay in the crook of Grandpa's left arm like a
limp infant (she was shedding sawdust at a dreadful rate, what with the
neglect she was suffering of late), while her poor eyes fixed themselves
on distance.

"She don't look like she's happy," Johnnie had declared to Cis more
than once. "She looks like she's just standin' it."

"Why, Johnnie!" Cis had reproved, "And here you've always said that _I_
was silly about