at, which he had been using for a basket.

"Here you are," he said. "Say, do you know that other girl?"

Bessie's heart leaped again. She felt that she had struck real luck at
last.

"What other girl?" she asked, but even as she asked the question, her
heart sank again. He couldn't mean Zara. How could he possibly know
anything about her?

"She was dressed just like you," he said. "And she had black hair and
her skin was dark. So she didn't look like you at all, you see. She was
crying, too. Say, aren't those cherries good? Why don't you eat them?"

Bessie was so interested and excited when she heard him speak of Zara
that she forgot to eat the cherries. But she saw that she had hurt his
feelings by her neglect of his present, and she made amends at once. She
ate several of them, and smacked her lips.

"They're splendid, Jack! They're the best I've eaten this year. I think
you're lucky to be able to get them."

Jack was delighted.

"You come here again later on and I'll give you some of the best pears
you ever tasted."

"Tell me some more about the girl, Jack--the other girl, with black
hair. I think perhaps she's a friend of mine. Why was she crying?"

"I don't know but she was. She was going on terrible. And she was with
her pop, I guess. So I s'pose she'd just been naughty, and he'd punished
her."

"What makes you think that, Jack?"

"Oh, he came in, and he talked to my pop, and they both laughed and
looked at her. He had her by the hand, and she didn't say anything--she
just cried. And my pop says, 'Well, I've got just the place for her. Too
bad to send her off without her dinner, but when they're bad they've got
to be punished.' And he winked at her, but she didn't wink back."

"What happened then, Jack?"

"They put her up in my room. See, you can see it there, right over the
tree with the branch torn off. See that branch? It was torn off in that
storm yesterday."

"And didn't she have any dinner?"

"Oh, yes. My pop, he sent her some dinner, of course. He was just
joking. That's why he winked at her. He'd never let anyone go hungry, my
pop wouldn't!"

"What sort of looking man brought her here, Jack?"

"Oh, he--he was just a man. He had white hair, and eye-glasses. Say,
that's his rig right there in the corner of the shed. I don't think much
of it, do you?"

Bessie wondered what she should do. She liked Jack, and she was sure he
would do anything he could for her. But he was only a little b