nd the counter. He was alone in
the store.

"Say," said Eddy, "where's Mr. Anderson?"

"He's gone out," replied the clerk, with a kind look at the boy. He
had lost one of his own years ago, and Eddy, in spite of his innocent
superciliousness, appealed to him.

"Where?" asked Eddy. The cat wriggled in his arms and jumped down.
Then he rolled over ingratiatingly at his feet. Eddy stooped down and
rubbed the shining, furry stomach.

"He took the net he catches butterflies with," replied the old clerk,
"and I guess he's gone to walk in the fields somewhere."

"I should think it was pretty late for butterflies," said Eddy. He
straightened himself and looked very hard at the glass jar of
molasses-balls on the shelf behind the clerk.

"There might be a stray one," said William Price. "It's a warm day."

"Shucks!" said Eddy. "Say, how much are those a pound?"

The clerk glanced around at the jar of molasses-balls. "Twenty-five
cents," replied he.

"Guess I'll take a pound," said Eddy. "I 'ain't got any money with
me, but I'll pay you the next time I come in."

The old clerk's common face turned suddenly grave, and acquired
thereby a certain distinction. He turned about, took off the cover of
the glass jar, and gathered up a handful of the molasses-balls and
put them in a little paper bag. Then he came forth from behind the
counter and approached the boy. He thrust the paper bag into a little
grasping hand, then he took hold of the small shoulders and looked
down at him steadily. The blue eyes in the ordinary face of an
ordinary man, unfitted for any work in life except that of an
underling, were full of affection and reproof. Eddy looked into them,
then he hitched uneasily.

"What you doing so for?" said he; then he looked into the eyes again
and was still.

"It's jest this," said William Price. "Here's a little bag of them
molasses-balls, I'll give 'em to ye; but don't you never, as long as
you live, buy anything you 'ain't either got the money to pay for in
your fist, ready, or know jest where it's comin' from. It's stealin',
and it's the wust kind of stealin', 'cause it ain't out an' out. I
had a boy once about your size."

"Where's he now?" asked Eddy, in a half-resentful, half-wondering
fashion.

"He's dead; died years ago of scarlet-fever, and I'd a good deal
rather have it so, much as I thought of him--as much as your father
thinks of you--than to have him grow up and steal and cheat folks."

"Didn't