dog, but I
guess I should rather be his master than anybody else. He never bit
you, did he?"

"No."

"I should think he would be an awful nice watch-dog," said Eddy.

Anderson bound the arm tightly and smoothly with a bandage. When the
arm was finally dressed the jacket-sleeve could go over it, much to
Eddy's satisfaction.

"Say, this jacket ain't paid for," he said. "Isn't it lucky that the
man where Amy bought it didn't know we didn't have much money to pay
for things lately and trusted us. If I had on my old jacket, the
sleeves were so short and tight, because I had outgrown it, you know,
I'd been hurt a good deal worse, and it was lucky we hadn't paid the
Chinaman, too. It was real-- What do you call it?"

"I don't know what you mean?" said Anderson, smiling.

"It was real-- Oh, shucks! you know. What is it folks say when they
don't go on a railroad train, and there's an accident, and everybody
that did go is killed. You know."

"Oh, providential?"

"Yes, it was real providential."

"Suppose we go down."

"All right. Say, you mind you don't say a word about this to your
mother or Charlotte."

"Yes, I promise."

"Your mother is an awful nice lady," said Eddy, in a whisper,
descending the stairs behind Anderson, "but I don't want her fussing
over me as if I was a girl, 'cause I ain't."

When the two entered the sitting-room, Charlotte started and looked
at her brother.

"Eddy Carroll, what is the matter?" she cried.

"Nothing," declared the little boy, stoutly, but he manifestly
tottered.

"Why, the dear child is ill!" cried Mrs. Anderson. "Randolph, what
has happened?"

"Nothing!" cried Eddy, holding on to his consciousness like a hero.
"Nothing; and I ain't a dear child."

"It is nothing, mother," said Anderson, quickly coming to his rescue.

Charlotte was eying wisely the knee of Eddy's knickerbockers. "Eddy
Carroll," said she, with tender severity, "your knee must be paining
you terribly."

Eddy quickly grasped at the lesser evil. "It ain't worth talking
about," he responded, stoutly.

"I can see blood on your knee, dear. It must be bad to make you turn
so pale as that."

With a soft swoop like a mother hen, Mrs. Anderson descended upon the
boy, who did not dare resist that gentle authority. She tenderly
rolled up the leg of the little knickerbockers and examined the
bruised, childish knee. Then she got some witch-hazel and bound it
up. While she was doing so, Eddy gazed over her