would be standing by the bench on which
sat Red McWha, with one big knee usually hooked high above the other,
and his broad back reclined against the edge of a bunk. For a few
minutes the child would stand there smiling with a perennial
confidence, waiting to be noticed. Then she would come closer, without
a word from her usually nimble little tongue, lean against McWha's
knee, and look up coaxingly into his face. If McWha chanced to be
singing, for he was a "chanter" of some note, he would appear so
utterly absorbed that Rosy-Lilly would at last slip away, with a look
of hurt surprise in her face, to be comforted by one of her faithful.
But if McWha were not engrossed in song, it would soon become
impossible for him to ignore her. He would suddenly look down at her
with his fierce eyes, knit his shaggy red brows, and demand harshly:
"Well, Yaller Top, an' what d'_you_ want?"

From the loud voice and angry eye the child would retreat in haste,
clear to the other end of the room, and sometimes a big tear would
track its way down either cheek. After such an experiment she would
usually seek Jimmy Brackett, who would console her with some sticky
sweetmeat, and strive to wither McWha with envenomed glances. McWha
would reply with a grin, as if proud of having routed the little
adventurer so easily. He had discovered that the name "Yaller Top" was
an infallible weapon of rebuff, as Rosy-Lilly considered it a term of
indignity. To his evil humour there was something amusing in abashing
Rosy-Lilly with the title she most disliked. Moreover, it was an
indirect rebuke to the "saft" way the others acted about her.

If Rosy-Lilly felt rebuffed for the moment by McWha's rudeness, she
seemed always to forget it the next time she saw him. Night after
night she would sidle up to his knee, and sue for his notice; and
night after night she would retire discomfited. But on one occasion
the discomfiture was McWha's. She had elicited the customary rough
demand--

"Well, Yaller Top, what d'_you_ want?"

But this time she held her ground, though with quivering lips.

"Yaller Top ain't my name 'tall," she explained with baby politeness.
"It's Rosy-Lilly; 'n' I jes' thought you _might_ want me to sit on
yer knee a little, teeny minit."

Much taken aback, McWha glanced about the room with a loutish grin.
Then he flushed angrily, as he felt the demand of the sudden silence.
Looking down again, with a scowl, at the expectant little face o