ey had seen a small
sailor-clad form hurtle itself from the step and fall flat upon the
gravel platform. It was not until a sudden lusty roar went up that Eileen
remembered she had two babies en route. She dropped Betty like a flash,
and turned.

The porter very grimly picked up the child, and held him out, and Eileen
saw with horror that his face was fairly sandpapered from the fall, and
blood was starting from a dozen tiny pricks.

"If this is yourn, for Gawd's sake, take 'im," begged the porter. "He's
fell off'n everything and into everything between here and Seattle."

Eileen clung desperately to Betty's moist hand.

"Don't get scared, Auntie," chirped the small bright voice. "Billy always
falls into things, and he ain't never broke anything yet,--himself, I
mean, arms or legs or necks,--he breaks lots of dishes and vases and
things like that."

Eileen was stricken dumb, but Eveley took the writhing roaring boy from
the porter's hand, and dusted him lightly with her handkerchief.

"Why, where are your curls, Billy?" she demanded, hoping to distract his
attention. And she succeeded only too well, for he stopped so suddenly in
the midst of a loud wail that he almost choked. When he finally recovered
his breath, he snorted derisively.

"Curls! Huh! I ain't no girl. I ain't got any curls. I never did have
curls."

"Oh, yes, you did," she argued. "Two years ago you had beautiful, long
golden curls just like Betty's."

Billy hunched up his shoulders and clenched a small brown fist.

"You got to say, 'Excuse me for them words,'" he said belligerently.
"Ain't so, and you got to say it."

Scenting battle, Eveley hastily muttered the desired words, and passed
him over to Eileen.

Billy thrust out a sturdy hand, but to Eileen's evident delight he
refused to be kissed.

"Betty's got to be whipped, Aunt Eileen," he announced. "Aunt Agnes told
me to tell you all she did on the train, and you would whip her. She
stuck a pin in a fat man that was asleep,--that's the man right
there,--Say, didn't Betty stick a pin in you?"

But the fat man gave them a venomous glare, and hurried away. "And she
pulled the beads off of that blonde lady's coat,--and if you don't
believe it, you can look in her pocket 'cause she's got 'em yet. And she
swiped a box of candy from that lady in the yellow suit, and the lady
said the porter did it, and they had an awful fight. And she sang _The
Yanks Are Coming_ in the middle of the night a