bably it was worried about its nest and didn't like
to have people so near. And yet they sat as still, he and Mr. Welles, as
still as a tree, or the shiny water in the pool.

Mr. Welles opened his eyes and took the little boy's rough, calloused
hand in his. "See here, Paul, maybe you can help me make up my mind."

Paul squared his shoulders.

"It's this way. I'm pretty nearly used up, not good for much any more.
And the Electrical Company wanted to fix everything the nicest way for
me to live. And they have. I hadn't any idea anything could be so nice
as living next door to you folks in such a place as Crittenden's. And
then making friends with you. I'd always wanted a little boy, but I
thought I was so old, no little boy would bother with me."

He squeezed the child's fingers and looked down on him lovingly. For a
moment Paul's heart swelled up so he couldn't speak. Then he said, in a
husky voice, "I _like_ to." He took a large bite from his sandwich and
repeated roughly, his mouth full, "I _like_ to."

Neither said anything more for a moment. The flicker . . . yes, it was a
flicker . . . in the big beech kept changing her position, flying down
from a top-branch to a lower one, and then back again. Paul made out the
hole in the old trunk of the tree where she'd probably put her nest, and
wondered why she didn't go back to it.

"Have you got to the Civil War, in your history yet, Paul?"

"Gee, yes, 'way past it. Up to the Philadelphia Exposition."

Mr. Welles said nothing for a minute and Paul could see by his
expression that he was trying to think of some simple baby way to say
what he wanted to. Gracious! didn't he know Paul was in the seventh
grade? "_I_ can understand all right," he said roughly.

Mr. Welles said, "Well, all right. If you can, you'll do more than I
can. You know how the colored people got their freedom then. But
something very bad had been going on there in slavery, for ever so long.
And bad things that go on for a long time, can't be straightened out in
a hurry. And so far, it's been too much for everybody, to get this
straightened out. The colored people . . . they're made to suffer all the
time for being born the way they are. And that's not right . . . in
America . . ."

"Why don't they stand up for themselves?" asked Paul scornfully. He'd
like to see anybody who would make him suffer for being born the way he
was.

Mr. Welles hesitated again. "It looks to me this way. People can fig