snapped, and wondered at his own indignation. "We'll
find something suitable for you to do, or you can go to school----"

"School!" she interrupted him in her turn. "I--I'd like to learn things
an' be like other folks, but I ain't--I mean I'm not--goin' to any
institootion."

He glanced at her curiously. This was the first time she had made any
conscious effort to correct herself, the first evidence she had given
that she had noted the difference between his speech and hers.

"I didn't mean an institution, but a real school, Lou," he explained
gently. "One where you'll have no uniform to wear, and no work to do
except to learn."

"I quit learnin' when I was twelve." There was an unconscious note of
wistfulness in her tones. "I kin read an' do a little figgerin', but I
don't know much of anythin' else. I couldn't go to school an' begin
again where I left off, Jim; I'd be sort of ashamed. Oh, look at that
big wagon drivin' out of that gate! Maybe we'll git a lift."

She had turned at the creak of wheels, and now, as the cart loaded with
crates and pulled by two lean, sorry-looking horses passed, she gazed
expectantly at the driver. He was as lean as his team, with a sharp nose
and a tuft of gray hair sticking out from his chin, and his close-set
eyes straight ahead of him, as though he were determined not to see to
the two wayfarers.

"He looks kinder mean, don't he?" Lou remarked. Then impulsively she ran
after the wagon: "Say, mister, will you give us a lift?"

The old man pulled in his horses and regarded her sourly.

"What'll you pay?" he demanded.

"What's in them crates," she parried.

"Eggs." The response was laconic. "What you gittin' at, sis?"

"Who unloads them when you git to where you're goin'?" Lou persisted.

"At the Riverburgh dock? I do, unless I'm late, an' then I have to give
a couple o' them loafers around there a quarter apiece to help. I'm late
to-day, an' if you ain't got any money to ride--Giddap!"

But Lou halted him determinedly.

"If you'll give me and Jim--I mean my brother--a ride, he'll unload the
crates for you for nothin' when we git there. You'll be savin' fifty
cents, and the ride won't cost you nothin'."

"Well"--the old man considered for a moment--"I'll do it, if it's only
to spite them fellers that's allus hangin' 'round the docks. Reg'lar
robbers, they be. Quarter apiece, an' chicken-feed gone up the way't is.
Git in."

Jim had overtaken the wagon in time to hear th