roceeded to tell me what he thought of the
sign.

"Boys not allowed!" said he. "That's just the way 'tis everywhere; but I
never saw the sign up before. It don't make any difference, though,
whether they put the sign up or not. Why, in New York (you live in New
York, don't you?) they won't even stop the horse-cars for a boy to get on.
Nobody thinks any thing'll hurt a boy; but they're glad enough to 'allow'
us when there's any errands to be done, and"--

"Do you live in New York?" interrupted I; for I did not wish to hear the
poor little fellow's list of miseries, which I knew by heart beforehand
without his telling me, having been hopeless knight-errant of oppressed
boyhood all my life.

Yes, he "lived in New York," and he "went to a grammar school," and he had
"two sisters." And so we talked on in that sweet, ready, trustful talk
which comes naturally only from children's lips, until the "twenty minutes
for refreshments" were over, and the choked and crammed passengers, who
had eaten big dinners in that breath of time, came hurrying back to their
seats. Among them came the father and mother of my little friend. In angry
surprise at not finding him in the seat where they left him, they
exclaimed,--

"Now, where _is_ that boy? Just like him! We might have lost every one of
these bags."

"Here I am, mamma," he called out, pleasantly. "I could see the bags all
the time. Nobody came into the car."

"I told you not to leave the seat, sir. What do you mean by such conduct?"
said the father.

"Oh, no, papa," said poor Boy, "you only told me to take care of the
bags." And an anxious look of terror came into his face, which told only
too well under how severe a _regime_ he lived. I interposed hastily with--

"I am afraid I am the cause of your little son's leaving his seat. He had
sat very still till I spoke to him; and I believe I ought to take all the
blame."

The parents were evidently uncultured, shallow people. Their irritation
with him was merely a surface vexation, which had no real foundation in a
deep principle. They became complaisant and smiling at my first word, and
Boy escaped with a look of great relief to another seat, where they gave
him a simple luncheon of saleratus gingerbread. "Boys not allowed" to go
in to dinner at the Massasoit, thought I to myself; and upon that text I
sat sadly meditating all the way from Springfield to Boston.

How true it was, as the little fellow had said, that "it don't