e do love Mrs. Kukor's
bread!" And he could not blame them. It _was_ so good!

Then, a trifle startled, he noted that the wheel chair was not in the
kitchen; but guessed at once that Barber had quietly rolled Grandpa into
the bedroom at a late hour. Next, his roving glance dropped back to the
old mattress, and he caught sight of the dolls. Forgetting what a
comfort they had been to him the evening before, this while feeling
boyishly ashamed and foolish at having had them with him, in a panic he
caught them up and flung them, willy-nilly, out of sight upon Cis's
couch; after which, looking sheepish, and wondering if Big Tom had, by
any chance, seen them, he put away his bedding, filled the teakettle,
and reached down the package of oatmeal.

It was not till he started to build a fire that he remembered! In the
fire box still was all that remained of his uniform, his books, and the
Carnegie medal. He lifted a stove lid; then as a mourner looks down into
a grave that has received a dear one, so, for a long, sad moment, he
gazed into the ashes. "Oh, my stories!" he faltered. "Oh, my peachy suit
o' clothes!"

But it was the medal he hunted. On pressing the ashes through into the
ash-box, something fell with a clear tinkle, and he dug round till he
found a burned and blackened disk. Fire had harmed it woefully. That
side bearing the face of its donor was roughened and scarred, so that no
likeness of Mr. Carnegie survived; but on the other side, near to the
rim, several words still stood out clearly--_that a man lay down his
life for his friends_.

After more poking around he found all the metal buttons off the uniform,
each showing the scout device, for, being small, the buttons had dropped
into the ashes directly their hold upon the cloth was loosened by the
flames, and so escaped serious damage. Also, following a more careful
search, he discovered--the tooth.

The clock alarm rang, and he surmised that Big Tom had wound it when he
came out for Grandpa.

"John!"

Somehow that splintered bit of Barber's tusk made Johnnie feel more
independent than ever. With it between a thumb and finger, he dared be
so indifferent to the summons that he did not reply at once. Instead, he
took the buttons to the sink and rinsed them; rinsed the tooth, too.
Then he put the medal into the shallow dish holding the dead rose
leaves, filled a cracked coffee cup with the buttons, and tossed the
tooth into the drawer of the kitchen table.