"I suppose so," muttered Mickey. "So long!"

"Maybe he doesn't like it," said Sister as they went on toward their
house.

"Oh, yes he does," replied Brother confidently. "He'll go, you see if
he doesn't."

Mickey Gaffney did go see Miss Putnam, and something about him made the
old lady like him right away. She engaged him to do errands for her an
hour in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and she paid him
fifteen cents an hour. If he weeded in the garden that was to be extra.

"Will you have enough for your shoes?" asked Sister anxiously one
morning, when Mickey came to do some weeding in the garden for Jimmie.

"My, yes, and I guess I can buy my little sister a pair," said Mickey
proudly.

"Have you a little sister?" demanded Brother and Sister together. "How
old is she?"

"Five," answered Mickey, getting down on his hands and knees and going
at the weeds in a business-like way. "She'll be five next month."

"Isn't that nice!" commented Sister. "I'm five years old, too."

Mickey avoided her eyes and was apparently too busy to talk much to
them, so by and by Brother and Sister ran off and left him to his
weeding.

If they had stayed, they might have seen Mickey throw down his
weeding-fork suddenly and march out of the garden.

"Don't believe that boy is going to stick to his work," said Molly to
Mother Morrison. "He's gone already."

But Mickey was hurrying along toward Miss Putnam's house and did not
care very much what anyone thought of him. He didn't think kindly of
himself at that moment.

"Why, Mickey!" Miss Putnam looked up at him in amazement as he came
around to the back porch where she was sweeping a rug. "What's the
matter, child, don't you feel well?"

"I feel all right," he said briefly. "Say, Miss Putnam, you know that
tar that was on your porch? I threw it!"

"You--you what?" gasped Miss Putnam. "You threw that hot tar all over
my clean porch and walk? Why, Mickey!"

"Yes'm," muttered Mickey miserably.

"But why?" insisted Miss Putnam. "And Mrs. Graham told me that the
Morrison boy and girl did it."

"Guess she thought she saw 'em--it was most dark," said Mickey. "But it
wasn't Roddy and Betty. I did it, and Nina, my little sister, helped
me."

"But why?" persisted Miss Putnam. "I never should have thought it of
you, Mickey, never."

Strange as it may seem, Miss Putnam really liked Mickey. He was so
willing and so cheerful and so quick that the old lady who had had to
do