the apple-trees. Robin was lying on his stomach watching something on the ground so intently that sometimes the bare feet forgot to wave over his back and were held up motionless.

With one hand he was pulling along at a snail's pace a green leaf, on which a dead bumble-bee lay in state. With the other he was keeping in order a funeral procession of caterpillars. It was a motley crowd of mourners that the energetic forefinger urged along the line of march. He had evidently collected them from many quarters,—little green worms that spun down from the apple boughs overhead; big furry brown caterpillars that had hurried along the honeysuckle trellis to escape his fat fingers; spotted ones and striped ones; horned and smooth. They all straggled along, each one travelling his own gait, each one bent on going a different direction, but all kept in line by that short determined forefinger.

Steven laughed so suddenly that the little master of ceremonies jumped up and turned a startled face towards him. Then he saw that there were traces of tears on the dimpled face and one eye was swollen nearly shut.

"O Robin! what is it now?" he cried in distress. "How did you hurt yourself so dreadfully?"

"Ole bumble!" answered Robin, pointing to the leaf. "He flied in ze kitchen an' sat down in ze apple peelin's. I jus' poked him, nen he flied up and bit me. He's dead now," he added triumphantly. "Gramma killed him. See all ze cattow-pillows walkin' in ze p'cession?"

So the days slipped by in the old farmhouse. Frost nipped the gardens, and summer vanished entirely from orchard and field. The happy outdoor life was at an end, and Robin was like a caged squirrel. Steven had his hands full keeping him amused and out of the way.

"Well, my lad, isn't it about time for you to be starting to school?" Mr. Dearborn would ask occasionally. "You know I agreed to send you every winter, and I must live up to my promises."

But Steven made first one pretext and then another for delay. He knew he could not take Robin with him. He knew, too, how restless and troublesome the child would become if left at home all day.

So he could not help feeling glad when Molly went home on a visit, and Grandma Dearborn said her rheumatism was so bad that she needed his help. True, he had all sorts of tasks that he heartily despised,—washing dishes, kneading dough, sweeping and dusting,—all under the critical old lady's exacting supervision. But he preferred even that to being sent off to school alone every day.

One evening, just about sundown, he was out in the corncrib, shelling corn for the large flock of turkeys they were fattening for market. He heard Grandma Dearborn go into the barn, where her husband was milking. They were both a little deaf, and she spoke loud in order to be heard above the noise of the milk pattering into the pail. She had come out to look at one of the calves they intended selling.

"It's too bad," he heard her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set her heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such a young one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but he doesn't want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He always was closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see the little fellow go."

"Yes," was the answer, "he's a likely lad; but we're gettin' old, mother, and one is about all we can do well by. Sometimes I think maybe we've bargained for too much, tryin' to keep even one. So it's best to let the little one go before we get to settin' sech store by him that we can't."

A vague terror seized Steven as he realized who it was they were talking about. He lay awake a long time that night smoothing Robin's tangled curls, and crying at the thought of the motherless baby away among strangers, with no one to snuggle him up warm or sing him to sleep. Then there was another thought that wounded him deeply. Twist it whichever way he might, he could construe Mr. Dearborn's last remark to mean but one thing. They considered him a burden. How many plans he made night after night before he fell asleep! He would take Robin by the hand in the morning, and they would slip away and wander off to the woods together. They could sleep in barns at night, and he could stop at the farmhouses and do chores to pay for what they ate. Then they need not be a trouble to any one. Maybe in the summer they could find a nice dry cave to live in. Lots of people had lived that way. Then in a few years he would be big enough to have a house of his own. All sorts of improbable plans flocked into his little brain under cover of the darkness, but always vanished when the daylight came.

The next Saturday that they went to town was a cold, blustering day. They started late, taking a lunch with them, not intending to come home until the middle of the afternoon.

The wind blew a perfect gale by the time they reached town. Mr. Dearborn stopped his team in front of one of the principal groceries, saying, "Hop out, Steven, and see what they're paying for turkeys to-day."

As he sprang over the wheel an old gentleman came running around the corner after his hat, which the wind had carried away.

Steven caught it and gave it to him. He clapped it on his bald crown with a good-natured laugh. "Thanky, sonny!" he exclaimed heartily. Then he disappeared inside the grocery just as Mr. Dearborn called out, "I believe I'll hitch the horses and go in too; I'm nearly frozen."

Steven followed him into the grocery, and they stood with their hands spread out to the stove while they waited for the proprietor. He was talking to the old gentleman whose hat Steven had rescued.

He seemed to be a very particular kind of customer.

"Oh, go on! go on!" he exclaimed presently. "Wait on those other people while I make up my mind."

While Mr. Dearborn was settling the price of his turkeys, the old gentleman poked around like an inquisitive boy, thumping the pumpkins, smelling the coffee, and taking occasional picks at the raisins. Presently he stopped in front of Steven with a broad, friendly smile on his face.

"You're from the country, ain't you?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," answered Steven in astonishment.

"Came from there myself, once," he continued with a chuckle. "Law, law! You'd never think it now. Fifty years makes a heap o' difference."

He took another turn among the salt barrels and cracker boxes, then asked suddenly, "What's your name, sonny?"

"Steven," answered the boy, still more surprised.

The old fellow gave another chuckle and rubbed his hands together delightedly. "Just hear that, will you!" he exclaimed. "Why, that's my name, my very own name, sir! Well, well, well, well!"

He stared at the child until he began to feel foolish and uncomfortable. What image of his own vanished youth did that boyish face recall to the eccentric old banker?

As Mr. Dearborn turned to go Steven started after him.

"Hold on, sonny," called the old gentleman, "I want to shake hands with my namesake."

He pressed a shining half-dollar into the little mittened hand held out to him.

"That's for good luck," he said. "I was a boy myself, once. Law, law! Sometimes I wish I could have stayed one."

Steven hardly knew whether to keep it or not, or what to say. The old gentleman had resumed conversation with the proprietor and waved him off impatiently.

"I'll get Robin some candy and save all the rest till Christmas," was his first thought; but there was such a bewildering counter full of toys on one side of the confectioner's shop that he couldn't make up his mind to