s always at work at something. His mud-pie
bakery was famous for two blocks. He gathered bright pebbles and
shells. In the marble season he was a plutocrat in taws and agates.
Being always busy, he always had time to do more things. He even
volunteered to help his mother. When he got an occasional penny he
hoarded it in hiding. He had need to, for Sam borrowed what he could
and stole what he could not wheedle.

Little Brother was not stingy, but he saved; he bought his mother
petty gifts once in a while when he had enough to pay for something.

Little Sister and Sam were capable in emotional crises of sympathy or
hatred to express themselves volubly. Little Brother had no gifts of
speech. He made gifts of pebbles or of money awkwardly, shyly, with
few words. Mamise, as she tried to extricate herself from Abbie's
lassoing hospitality, paused in the door and studied the children,
contrasting them with the Webling grandchildren who had been born with
gold spoons in their mouths and somebody to take them out, fill them,
and put them in again. But luxury seemed to make small difference in
character.

She mused upon the three strange beings that had come into the world
as a result of the chance union of Jake and Abbie. Without that they
would never have existed and the world would have never known the
difference, nor would they.

Sis and Sam were quarreling vigorously. Little Brother was silent upon
the hearth. He had collected from the gutter many small stones and
sticks. They were treasures to him and he was as important about them
as a miser about his shekels. Again and again he counted them, taking
a pleasure in their arithmetic. Already he was advanced in mathematics
beyond the others and he loved to arrange his wealth for the sheer
delight of arrangement; orderliness was an instinct with him already.

For a time Mamise noted how solemnly he kept at work, building a little
stone house and painfully making it stand. He was a home-builder
already.

Sam had paid no heed to the work. But, wondering what Mamise was
looking at, he turned and saw his brother. A grin stretched his
mouth. Little Brother grew anxious. He knew that when something he had
builded interested Sam its doom was close.

"Whass 'at?" said Sam.

"None yer business," said Little Brother, as spunky as Belgium before
the Kaiser.

"'S'ouse, ain't it?"

"You lea' me 'lone, now!"

"Where d'you git it at?"

"I built it."

"Gimme't!"

"You buil