biscuit!

Abner Sawyer departed hastily for his lamp, his fire and his paper.

Jimsy followed Aunt Judith to the kitchen and here, in the shining quiet of an old-fashioned kitchen whose spotless rows of pans and its rocker by the window reflected nothing of first citizenship, the memory-making mystery of child and woman in a homely setting drew taut an age-old chord of sympathy. Out of the hum of the kettle and the fire-shadows of the grate it came, out of the winter wind that rattled the checkerpaned windows—that eternal something that is only given to women to understand. Jimsy did not know why Aunt Judith smiled or why the smile made his throat hurt a little. He only knew by her eyes that she liked him and that was enough.

"Aunt Judith," he blurted, "lemme—aw, lemme wipe your dishes."

But Aunt Judith, with the wisdom of women, knew that the best-behaved china is perversely given to leaping without warning out of the hands of any boy, to his utter consternation, and she patted him on the back.

"Bless your heart, Jimsy," she said, "there are so few I can do them myself in no time."

Jimsy!—not James! Jimsy felt that he must do something for Aunt Judith Sawyer or his throat would burst. So finding one leg at liberty, he furtively kicked the leg of the stove and hurt his toe, even as his eyes fell upon a depleted stock of kindlings in the wood-box.

"Well, then," he burst out in a glow of good-will, "lemme—lemme take Uncle Ab's job to-night an' get the wood."

Aunt Judith's horrified glance made him redden uncomfortably.

"Jimsy," she whispered hurriedly, "you—you must never—never call Mr. Sawyer—Uncle Ab. Nobody does."

"But," mumbled the boy, "ye—ye said folks call ye Aunt Judith, an'—an'—"

"It—it's different," faltered Aunt Judith. "I—I'm nobody in particular. Mr. Sawyer's a bank president, Jimsy, and I—I always get the wood myself." She opened the door and pointed to a woodpile glimmering out of the darkness with a rim of snow. "The kindlings are split and piled in the shed. And hurry, child. The wind's sharp."

Jimsy set forth with a noisy whistle. When presently he returned with an armful of kindlings, his eyes were shining. And holding the door ajar, he coaxed into the warmth of Aunt Judith's kitchen a shivering dog, little and lame and thin.

"Aunt Judith," he shrilled, dropping his kindlings into the box with a clatter, "look! He was out there under the woodpile, shiverin,' an' he won't go away. He's a stray, too, like I was afore Mom Dorgan gave me a bed with her kids." He patted the dog's head. "Gee, watch him duck, poor mutt! That's cause he's been walloped so much. Aunt Judith," he blurted, his gray eyes ablaze with pleading, "can't ye maybe jus' let him sleep behind the stove? He's so sort of shivery I—I feel awful sorry fur him."

"No, no, no!" said Aunt Judith in distress. "I can't. I can't, indeed. Mr. Sawyer—"

"JAMES!"