"Sure thing!"

"Ye'll never say a word, then--about seein' her; nuthin' to give the
sheriff a hint where she might be?"

"Why, mother!" The man laid a hand on her shoulder, looking down at
her with accusing eyes. "Hain't you known me long enough to know I
couldn't tell on any one who'd been good to--" He broke off with a
cough. "And what's more, do you think any one who could take our
little boy's hand and lead him, as you might say, straight to
heaven--would be a thief? No, siree!"

* * * * *

It was a sober, thoughtful Patsy that followed the road, the pilgrim
staff gripped tightly in her hand. She clung to it as the one
tangible thing left to her out of all the happenings and memories of
her quest. The tinker had disappeared as completely as if the earth
had swallowed him, leaving behind no reason for his going, no hope of
his coming again; Billy Burgeman was still but a flimsy promise; and
Joseph had outstripped them both, passing beyond her farthest vision.
Small wonder, then, that the road was lonely and haunted for Patsy,
and that she plodded along shorn of all buoyancy.

Her imagination began playing tricks with her. Twice it seemed as if
she could feel a little lad's hand, warm and eager, curled under hers
about the staff; another time she found herself gazing through
half-shut eyes at a strange lad--a lad of twelve--who walked ahead
for a space, carrying two great white roses; and once she glanced up
quickly and saw the tinker coming toward her, head thrown back and
laughing. Her wits had barely time to check her answering laugh and
hands outstretching, when he faded into empty winding road.

The morning was uneventful. Patsy stopped but once--to trundle a
perambulator laden with washing and twins for its small conductor, a
mite of a girl who looked almost too frail to breast the weight of a
doll's carriage.

Even Patsy puffed under the strain of the burden. "How do you do it?"
she gasped.

"Well, I started when them babies was tiny and the washin' was small;
an' they both growed so gradual I didn't notice--much. An' ma don't
make me hurry none."

"How many children are there?"

"Nine. Last's just come. Pa says he didn't look on him as no
blessin', but ma says the Lord must provide--an' if it's babies, then
it's babies." She stopped and clasped her hands after the fashion of
an ancient grandmother tottering in the nineties: "Land o' goodness,
I do think an empty