heir warm hearthsides, knitting
their lives into comfortables to wrap around their real feelings and
human impulses, ever know about their neighbors who come in to drink
tea with them? And what do the neighbors in turn know about them? If
I had my way, I'd tumble the whole sit-by-the-fire-and-gossip world
out of doors and set them tramping the road to somewhere; 'tis the
surest way of getting them acquainted with themselves and the
neighbors. For that matter, all of us need it--just once in so often.
And so--to the road, say I, with a fair greeting to all alike, be
they king's son or beggar, for the road may prove the one's the other
afore the journey's done."

"Amen!" said the tinker, devoutly, and Patsy laughed.

They had stopped in the middle of the street, midway between the
church and the engine-house, Patsy so absorbed in her theories, the
tinker so absorbed in Patsy, that neither was aware of the changed
disposition of their circling escort until a cold, inquisitive nose
and a warm, friendly tongue brought them to themselves. Greetings
were returned in kind; heads were patted, backs stroked, ears
scratched--only the children stood aloof and unconvinced. That is
ever the way of it; it is the dogs who can better tell glorious
vagabondage from inglorious rascality.

"Sure, ye can't fool dogs; I'd be taking the word of a dog before a
man's anywhere when it comes to judging human beings." Patsy looked
over her shoulder at the children. "Ye have the creatures won over
entirely; 'tis myself might try what I could do with the wee ones. If
we had the dogs and the childther to say a good word for us--faith!
the grown-ups might forget how terribly respectable they were and
make us welcome for one night." A sudden thought caught her memory.
"I was almost forgetting why I had come. Hunt up a shop for me, lad,
will ye? There must be one down the street a bit; and if ye'll loan
me some of that half-crown the good man paid for your tinkering, I'd
like to be having a New York News--if they have one--along with the
fixings for a letter I have to be writing. While ye are gone I'll
bewitch the childther."

And she did.

When the tinker returned she was sitting on the church steps, the
children huddled so close about her that she was barely
distinguishable in the encircling mass of shingled heads, bobby
curls, pigtails and hair-ribbons. Deaf little ears were being turned
to parental calls for supper--a state of affairs unprece