quietly, as he pointed to his head again;
"this isn't worth anything; but you've cornered me, so I can't get out.
But, if I pay you, you must give me back a nickel, to pay for the hole
you snicked out of my ear."

Marjorie's face fell. She had been hoping that he would not notice the
little red spot on the tip of his left ear.

"And then," continued Grant remorselessly; "you can just put on your
hat, and come along with me to Allie's. We'll each put a nickel in the
bank, and then we'll be square. But you'd better believe I'll tell the
boys who did this, so they won't get taken in as I did."

A week later, Charlie and Allie opened the bank and counted the funds.
Only sixty-five cents had accumulated there; Allie's face fell as she
surveyed the meagre hoard.

"Hush up!" commanded Charlie, as he dropped something yellow and shining
into her lap. "I was in a bad fix last summer, and I know how 'tis, so I
ought to help on more than the rest of you. You just keep still and
don't say anything to the others."

And no one else ever knew the full history of the magazine that put in
its appearance at the beginning of the following month, with a greeting
to the stranger boy from his friends across the creek.

CHAPTER XII.

HOME WITHOUT A MOTHER.

There was mutiny in the Burnam household. It had broken out the night
before, when Vic was saying his prayers in the presence of Mrs.
Pennypoker, who was supposed to be temporarily filling his mother's
place. At the petition for daily bread, Vic had stopped short.

"Go on," said Mrs. Pennypoker, in slow, measured tones.

Victor opened his eyes and glared at her with undevout opposition.

"Don't want bread," he said firmly. "Vic likes biskies."

"It means the same thing, Victor," answered Mrs. Pennypoker, in her hard
voice. "Now be a good little boy and finish your prayer, or God won't
listen to you, another time, when you are asking him for something."

It was then that Vic had delivered himself of his first baby heresy,
which had been slowly working in his brain while Mrs. Pennypoker had
been urging him through his devotions, in a manner so unlike the tender
gentleness of his pretty mamma.

"I don't like your God," he said deliberately, as he gazed up into the
cold, dark eyes above him; "I don't like your God a bit; I'm tired of
him. I want my mamma's." And, rising from his knees, he dived into bed,
where he burst out sobbing for mamma; nor would he be quieted unti