the
boy's vocabulary, He could only reiterate, "There!"

The doctor mused upon the situation, but he could make nothing of it.
At last he said, "Come, show me."

Together they crossed the lawn towards the flower-bed. At some yards
from the broken peony Jimmie began to lag. "There!" The word came
almost breathlessly.

"Where?" said the doctor.

Jimmie kicked at the grass. "There!" he replied.

The doctor was obliged to go forward alone. After some trouble he
found the subject of the incident, the broken flower. Turning then, he
saw the child lurking at the rear and scanning his countenance.

The father reflected. After a time he said, "Jimmie, come here." With
an infinite modesty of demeanor the child came forward. "Jimmie, how
did this happen?"

The child answered, "Now--I was playin' train--and--now--I runned over
it."

"You were doing what?"

"I was playin' train."

The father reflected again. "Well, Jimmie," he said, slowly, "I guess
you had better not play train any more to-day. Do you think you had
better?"

"No, sir," said Jimmie.

During the delivery of the judgment the child had not faced his
father, and afterwards he went away, with his head lowered, shuffling
his feet.

II

It was apparent from Jimmie's manner that he felt some kind of desire
to efface himself. He went down to the stable. Henry Johnson, the
negro who cared for the doctor's horses, was sponging the buggy. He
grinned fraternally when he saw Jimmie coming. These two were pals. In
regard to almost everything in life they seemed to have minds
precisely alike. Of course there were points of emphatic divergence.
For instance, it was plain from Henry's talk that he was a very
handsome negro, and he was known to be a light, a weight, and an
eminence in the suburb of the town, where lived the larger number of
the negroes, and obviously this glory was over Jimmie's horizon; but
he vaguely appreciated it and paid deference to Henry for it mainly
because Henry appreciated it and deferred to himself. However, on all
points of conduct as related to the doctor, who was the moon, they
were in complete but unexpressed understanding. Whenever Jimmie became
the victim of an eclipse he went to the stable to solace himself with
Henry's crimes. Henry, with the elasticity of his race, could usually
provide a sin to place himself on a footing with the disgraced one.
Perhaps he would remember that he had forgotten to put the
hitching-strap in