og. I heard the sounds, and I smelt the strong smell of fish
from the gleaming strings of perch and mackerel hanging across the way.
But through it all I did not look up and I did not turn. My first piece
of work was done with the high determination to do it well, and it has
been my conviction from that morning that if I had slighted that barrel
of apples, I should have failed inevitably in my career.

CHAPTER VI

CONCERNING CARROTS

When I had finished my work, I rose from my knees and stood waiting for
John Chitling's directions.

"Run along to the next street," he said kindly, "an' you can tell my
house, I reckon, by the number of children in the gutter. It's the house
with the most children befo' it. You'll find my wife cookin', likely
enough, in the kitchen, an' all you've got to say is that I told you to
tell her that you were hungry. She won't ax you many questions,--that
ain't her way,--but she'll jest set to work an' feed you."

Reassured by this description, I whistled to Samuel, and crossed the
narrow street, crowded with farmers' wagons and empty wheelbarrows, to a
row of dingy houses, with darkened basements, which began at the corner.
By the number of ragged and unwashed children playing among the old tin
cans in the gutter before the second doorway, I concluded that this was
the home of John Chitling; and I was about to enter the close, dimly
lighted passage, when a chorus of piercing screams from the small
Chitlings outside, brought before me a large, slovenly woman, with
slipshod shoes, and a row of curl papers above her forehead. When she
reached the doorway, a small crowd had already gathered upon the
pavement, and I beheld a half-naked urchin of a year or thereabouts,
dangled, head downwards, by the hand of a passing milkman.

"The baby's gone an' swallowed a cent, ma," shrieked a half-dozen treble
voices.

"Well, the Lord be praised that it wa'nt a quarter!" exclaimed Mrs.
Chitling, with a cheerful piety, which impressed me hardly less than did
the placid face with which she gazed upon the howling baby. "There,
there, it ain't near so bad as it might have been. Don't scream so,
Tommy, a cent won't choke him an' a quarter might have."

"But it was _my cent_, an' I ain't got a quarter!" roared Tommy, still
unconsoled.

"Well, I'll give you a quarter when my ship comes in," responded his
mother, at which the grief of the small financier began gradually to
subside.

"I had it right