o care for 'em. But I've got somebody!" he
cried. "I've got Barney! Oh, _don't_ let them shut me up somewhere so I
can't never get back to Barney!"

"They don't shut you up when they send you to an asylum," said Malcolm.
"The one near here is a lovely big house, with acres of green grass
around it, and orchards and vine-yards, and they are ever so good to the
children, and give them plenty to eat and wear, and send them
to school."

"Barney wouldn't be there," sobbed Jonesy, diving under the pillow
again. "I don't want nothing but him."

"Well, we'll see what we can do," said Malcolm, as he heard the
professor coming back. "If we could only keep you here until spring, I
am sure that papa would send you back all right. He's always helping
people that get into trouble."

Jonesy took his little snub nose out of the pillow as the professor came
in, and looked around defiantly as if ready to fight the first one who
dared to hint that he had been crying. The boys took their leave soon
after, leading the bear back to his new quarters in the carriage house,
where they had made him a comfortable den. Then they walked slowly up to
the house, their arms thrown across each other's shoulders.

"S'pose it was us," said Keith, after walking on a little way in
silence. "S'pose that you and I were left of all the family, and didn't
have any friends in the world, and I was to get separated from you and
couldn't get back?"

"That would be tough luck, for sure," answered Malcolm.

"Don't you s'pose Jonesy feels as badly about it as we would?" asked
Keith.

"Shouldn't be surprised," said Malcolm, beginning to whistle. Keith
joined in, and keeping step to the tune, like two soldiers, they marched
on into the house.

Virginia found them in the library, a little while later, sitting on the
hearth-rug, tailor-fashion. They were still talking about Jonesy. They
could think of nothing else but the loneliness of the little waif, and
his pitiful appeal: "Oh, don't let them shut me up where I can't never
get back to Barney."

"Why don't you write to your father?" asked Virginia, when they had told
her the story of their visit.

"Oh, it is so hard to explain things in a letter," answered Malcolm,
"and being off there, he'd say that grandmother and all the grown people
certainly know best. But if he could see Jonesy,--how pitiful looking he
is, and hear him crying to go back to his brother, I know he'd feel the
way we do about it."

"