up first
one street, then the other.

Everybody minds him. If everybody didn't, they might get run over and
wake up in a hospital. Oh, he must be minded, the King of the Crossing,
or nobody would be safe!

When the long day is over, he looks up the street and sees another big
man coming. This man wears a blue uniform, too, and a silver star, and
when the hands on the big clock at the corner point to five, he steps
into the place of the King of the Crossing and reigns in his stead.

Then the King jumps on to the platform of a passing street-car, and by
and by, when it has gone several miles, he jumps off again, and walks up
the street to a little house that's as neat as neat can be.

It stands back from the street in a little green yard. The house is
painted white, and the front door is green. But he doesn't go to the
front door. He goes round by the sidewalk to the kitchen door, and
there he doesn't even knock.

He opens the door and walks right in. Through the open door comes the
smell of something good cooking, and he sees a plump woman with blue
eyes that have smile wrinkles in the corners, just like his own, and
crinkly dark hair, just like his own, too, bending over the stove. She
is just tasting the something that smells so good, with a spoon.

When she sees the big man in the door she tastes so quickly that she
burns her tongue! But she can use it just the same even if it is
burned.

She runs to the big man and says, "And is that yourself, now, Larry
darling? Sure, I'm that glad to see you, I've scalded myself with the
soup!"

The big man has just time to say, "Sure, Eileen, you were always a great
one for burning yourself. Do you remember that day at Grannie
Malone's"--when out into the kitchen tumble a little Larry and a little
Eileen, and a Baby. They have heard his voice, and they fall upon the
King of the Crossing as if he weren't a King at all--but just a plain
ordinary Uncle.

They take off his cap and rumple his hair. They get into his pockets
and find some peppermints there. And the Baby even tries to get the
silver star off his breast to put into her mouth.

"Look at that now," cries Uncle Larry. "Get along with you! Is it
trying to take me off the Force, you are? Sure, that star was never
intended by the City for you to cut your teeth on."

"She'll poison herself with the things she's always after putting in her
mouth," cries the Mother. She seizes the Baby and sets her