e big door. They knew that they should not touch the outer
garments belonging to the older children; but they got their own wraps.

"Maybe he's too big for them," murmured Margy. "But I guess he can
squeeze into the coats--into one of them, anyway."

"Course he can," said Mun Bun. "Mine's a nawful warm coat. And that
black snowman isn't much bigger than I am, Margy."

"I don't know," said his sister slowly, for she was a little wiser than
Mun Bun about most things. "Open the door."

Mun Bun could do that. This was the inside door, and they stepped into
the vestibule. Pressing his face close to the glass of one of the outer
doors, Mun Bun stared down at the "black snowman" on the step.

"He's going to sleep in the snow," said the little boy. "I guess we've
got to wake him up, Margy."

He pounded on the glass with his fat fist. He knocked several times
before the figure below even moved. Then the colored boy, who was not
more than seventeen or eighteen, turned his head and looked up over his
shoulder at the faces of the two children in the vestibule.

He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual
thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded.
He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold.

"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun, beckoning to the strange boy. "Come up
here!"

The boy in the snow seemed scarcely to understand. Or else he was so
cold and exhausted that he could not immediately get up from the step on
which he was sitting.

CHAPTER III

UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW

The fluffy, sticky snowflakes gathered very fast upon the colored boy's
clothing. As Mun Bun had first announced, he looked like a snowman, only
his face was grayish-black.

He was slim, and when he finally stood up at the bottom of the house
steps, he seemed to waver just like a slim reed in the fierce wind that
drove the snowflakes against him. He hesitated, too. It seemed that he
scarcely knew whether it was best to mount the steps to Aunt Jo's front
door or not.

"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun again, and continued to beckon to him
through the glass of the outer door.

Margy held up her coat and cap, and beckoned to the boy also. He looked
much puzzled as he slowly climbed the steps. His lips moved and the
children knew he asked:

"What yo' want of me, child'en?"

Mun Bun tugged at the outer door eagerly, and finally it flew open. He
shouted in the face of the dri