201
XXII. CIS TELLS A SECRET 212
XXIII. ROSES THAT TATTLED 219
XXIV. FATHER PAT 233
XXV. AN ALLY CROSSES A SWORD 241
XXVI. THE END OF A LONG DAY 247
XXVII. ANOTHER GIFT 255
XXVIII. ANOTHER STORY 275
XXIX. REVOLT 290
XXX. DISASTER 300
XXXI. THE VISION 318
XXXII. HELP 330
XXXIII. ONE-EYE FIGHTS 345
XXXIV. SIR ALGERNON 357
XXXV. GOOD-BYS 363
XXXVI. LEFT BEHIND 373
XXXVII. UPS AND DOWNS 379
XXXVIII. ANOTHER GOOD-BY 391
XXXIX. THE LETTER 400
XL. "THE TRUE WAY" 407
THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY
ELEANOR GATES
CHAPTER I
THE WICKED GIANT
HE was ten. But his clothes were forty. And it was this difference in
the matter of age, and, consequently, in the matter of size, that
explained why, at first sight, he did not show how thin-bodied he was,
but seemed, instead, to be rather a stout little boy. For his faded, old
shirt, with its wide sleeves lopped off just above his elbows, and his
patched trousers, shortened by the scissors to knee length, were both
many times too large for him, so that they lay upon him, front, back and
sides, in great, overlapping pleats that were, in turn, bunched into
heavy tucks; and his kitchen apron, worn with the waistband about his
neck, the strings being tied at the back, also lent him--if viewed from
the front--an appearance both of width and weight.
But he was not stout. His frame was not even fairly well covered. From
the apron hem in front, the two legs that led down to the floor were
scarcely larger than lead piping. From the raveling ends of his short
sleeves were thrust out arms that matched the legs--bony, skinny arms,
pallid as to color, and with hardly any more shape to them than there
was to the poker of the cookstove. But while the lead-pipe legs ended in
the sort of hard, splinter-defying boy's feet that could be met with on
any stretch of pavement outside the tenement, the bony arms did not end
in boyish hands. The hands that hung, fingertip
|