No crying!" he began. "Be a man--be a man. And if you stick
to it, before Christmas comes, we'll see about those pockets, and you
can walk into the new year with your head up. But look sharp! Good-bye,
now!"

For the first time since the boy's fall Mr. Cary did not follow him to
the gate. Maybe this was the beginning of trust. Slight a thing as it
was, the boy took comfort in it.

At last it was Christmas eve. Crow was on the back "gallery" putting a
final polish on a pair of boots. He was nearly done, and his heart was
beginning to sink, when the old lady came and stood near him. There was
a very hopeful twinkle in her eye as she said, presently: "I wonder what
our little shoeblack, who has been trying so hard to be good, would like
to have for his Christmas gift?"

But Crow only blinked while he polished the faster.

"Tell me, Solomon," she insisted. "If you had one wish to-day, what
would it be?"

The boy wriggled nervously. And then he said:

"You knows, lady. Needle--an' thrade--an'--an'--you knows, lady.
Pockets."

"Well, pockets it shall be. Come into my room when you get through."

Old Mrs. Cary sat beside the fire reading as he went in. Seeing him, she
nodded, smiling, towards the bed, upon which Crow saw a brand-new suit
of clothes--coat, vest, and breeches--all spread out in a row.

"There, my boy," she said; "there are your pockets."

Crow had never in all his life owned a full new suit of clothes. All his
"new" things had been second-hand, and for a moment he could not quite
believe his eyes; but he went quickly to the bed and began passing his
hands over the clothes. Then he ventured to take up the vest--and to
turn it over. And now he began to find pockets.

"Three pockets in de ves'--two in de pants--an'--an' fo', no five, no
six--six pockets in de coat!"

He giggled nervously as he thrust his little black fingers into one and
then another. And then, suddenly overcome with a sense of the situation,
he turned to Mrs. Cary, and, in a voice that trembled a little, said:

"Is you sho' you ain't 'feerd to trus' me wid all deze pockets, lady?"

It doesn't take a small boy long to slip into a new suit of clothes. And
when a ragged urchin disappeared behind the head of the great old
"four-poster" to-day, it seemed scarcely a minute before a trig,
"tailor-made boy" strutted out from the opposite side, hands deep in
pockets--breathing hard.

As Solomon Crow strode up and down the room, radiant w