it. I've had four horses down with the 'zooty, and two
men laid up with dip'thery. The Big Gray Cully's drivin' over there--the
one that's a-hoistin'--ain't fit to be out of the stables. If ye weren't
behind in the work, he'd have two blankets on him this minute. But I'm
here meself now, and I'll have her out to-night if I work till daylight.
Here, cap'n, pull yerself together. This is the boss."

Then catching sight of the boy turning a handspring behind the horse,
she called out again:--

"Now, look here, Cully, none of your skylarkin'. There's the dinner
whistle. Unhitch the Big Gray; he's as dry as a bone."

The boy loosened the traces and led the horse to water, and Babcock,
after a word with the Captain, and an encouraging smile to Tom, turned
away. He meant to go to the engineer's office before his return to town,
now that his affairs with Grogan were settled. As he swung back the door
in the board fence, he stumbled over a mere scrap of humanity carrying a
dinner-pail. The mite was peering through the crack and calling to Cully
at the horse-trough. He proved to be a boy of perhaps seven or eight
years of age, but with the face of an old man--pinched, weary, and
scarred all over with suffering and pain. He wore a white tennis-cap
pulled over his eyes, and a short gray jacket that reached to his waist.
Under one arm was a wooden crutch. His left leg was bent at the knee,
and swung clear when he jerked his little body along the ground. The
other, though unhurt, was thin and bony, the yarn stocking wrinkling
over the shrunken calf.

Beside him stood a big billy-goat, harnessed to a two-wheeled cart made
of a soap-box.

As Babcock stepped aside to let the boy pass he heard Cully shouting
in answer to the little cripple's cries. "Cheese it, Patsy. Here's Pete
Lathers comin' down de yard. Look out fer Stumpy. He'll have his dog on
him."

Patsy laid down the pail and crept through the door again, drawing the
crutch after him. The yardmaster passed with a bulldog at his heels, and
touching his hat to the contractor, turned the corner of the coal-shed.

"What is your name?" said Babcock gently. A cripple always appealed to
him, especially a child.

"My name's Patsy, sir," looking straight up into Babcock's eyes, the
goat nibbling at his thin hand.

"And who are you looking for?"

"I come down with mother's dinner, sir. She's here working on the dock.
There she is now."

"I thought ye were niver comin' wid t