!" considered Pete. "I ain't paying any fancy price at
start, fur I don't know how things will work out; but I won't be mean with
you, Dan. What do you say to four dollars a week and board?"

"No," answered Dan, promptly. "I don't want your board at all."

"Ye don't?" said Pete in surprise. "It will be good board, Dan: no fancy
fixings but filling, I promise you that,--good and filling."

"I don't care how filling it is," answered Dan, gruffly. "I'd want my own
board, with Aunt Winnie. That's all I'd come to you for,--to take care of
Aunt Winnie."

"Ain't they good to her where she is?" asked Pete, who knew something of
the family history.

"Yes," answered Dan; "but she is not happy: she is homesick, and I want to
bring her--home."

And something in the tone of the boyish voice told Pete that, with Aunt
Winnie and a home, Dan would be secured as his faithful henchman forever.

"I don't blame you," he said. "I've got an old mother myself, and if I
took her out of her little cubby-hole of a house and put her in the marble
halls that folks sing about, she'd be pining. It's women nature, specially
old women. Can't tear 'em up by the roots when they're past sixty. And
that old aunt of yours has been good to you sure,--good as a mother."

"Yes," answered Dan, a little huskily, "good as a mother."

"Then you oughtn't to go back on her sure," said Pete, reflectively.
"Considering the old lady, I'll make it five dollars a week, if you'll
agree for a year ahead, Dan."

"A year ahead!" echoed Dan, thinking of all that year had promised him.

"Yes," said Pete, decidedly. "It must be a year ahead. I can't break you
in at such a big figger, and then hev you bolt the track just as I've got
used to you. I wouldn't give five dollars a week to any other boy in the
world, though I know lots of 'em would jump at it. It's only thinking of
that old mother of mine and how I'd feel in your place, makes me offer it
to you. Five dollars a week will bring your Aunt Winnie back home. And,
between you and me, Dan, if she ain't brought back, she'll be in another
sort of home before long, and past your helping. Mrs. Mulligan was telling
me the other day that she had been out to see her, and she was looking
mighty peaked and feeble,--not complaining of course, but just pining away
natural."

"When will you want me?" blurted out Dan, desperately. "Right off now?"

"Oh, no, no!" was the hasty answer. "I haven't got the other place open
yet