hat James was one of them."

"Did James like that?"

"Not very well, but he put up with it for quite a few minutes at a time.
He couldn't be still very long. But he was pretty lonesome when Jenny
had the measles."

"I've had the chicken-pox. Did Bobby know how to mind his P's and Q's?"

"He didn't mind anybody very well. Once I had a note from his teacher,
and it said----"

But Freddie never learned what sin Bobby had committed in school; for at
that moment the shop door opened, and Mr. Toby thrust in his head and
said:

"Just got to get around to the barber-shop right away this minute; can't
put it off no longer. Won't be gone twenty minutes. Freddie!"

"Yes, sir," said Freddie, standing up.

"Do you think you could look after the shop for twenty minutes, while
I'm gone?"

Now Freddie did not know it, but this was in fact the most important
question that had ever been put to him in his life. Everything depended
on his answer; if he said no, we might as well stop this story right
here; if he said yes----

"Yes, sir," said Freddie.

"All right. If anybody comes in, just tell 'em to wait."

Freddie left Aunt Amanda, sitting very still, and gazing out of the
window, with her hands folded in her lap, and followed Mr. Toby into the
shop.

"All right, sonny," said Mr. Toby, "make yourself comfortable. I'll be
back in a jiffy. If anybody comes in, you tell 'em to wait." And with
that he went out of the door and up the street. Freddie was left alone
in the shop.

Everything was very quiet now, for it was beginning to be twilight, and
all the people seemed to be indoors. He knew he ought to be going home,
but he had promised to mind the shop, and it would never do to leave
before Mr. Toby came back. The street door and the door to Aunt Amanda's
room were both closed. He sat down on the chair by the front window and
looked out across the bull-dog's head. He thought of Bobby and his
little sister in Sunday-school, and that led him to think of the hymn
that did him so much good:

"Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin."

He sang that tune to himself for a while, and he found himself singing
other tunes, and finally one which began:

"There was an old codger, and he had a wooden leg,
And he never bought tobacco when tobacco he could beg."

Tobacco! There was a world of tobacco on those shelves. Smoking tobacco,
and churchwarden pipes. He strolled around behind the counter, and let
d