ing an umbrella. It was
just perceptible that he was a fat man, struggling with seeming
feebleness in the wind and making poor progress. Mr. Atwater, moving up
Julia's Street, was out of sight from the cross street where struggled
the fat man.

Noble ran swiftly down the cross street, jerked the umbrella from the
fat man's grasp; ran back, with hoarse sounds dying out behind him in
the riotous dusk; turned the corner, sped after Mr. Atwater, overtook
him, and thrust the umbrella upon him. Then, not pausing the shortest
instant for thanks or even recognition, the impulsive boy sped onward,
proud and joyous in the storm, leaving his beneficiary far behind him.

In his young enthusiasm he had indeed done something for Mr. Atwater. In
fact, Noble's kindness had done as much for Mr. Atwater as Julia's
gentleness had done for Noble, but how much both Julia and Noble had
done was not revealed in full until the next evening.

That was a warm and moonshiny night of air unusually dry, and yet
Florence sneezed frequently as she sat upon the "side porch" at the
house of her Great-Aunt Carrie and her Great-Uncle Joseph. Florence had
a cold in the head, though how it got to her head was a process involved
in the mysterious ways of colds, since Florence's was easily to be
connected with Herbert's remark that he wouldn't ever be caught takin'
his death o' cold sittin' on the damp grass in the night air just to
listen to a lot o' tooty-tooty. It appeared from Florence's narrative to
those interested listeners, Aunt Carrie and Uncle Joseph, that she had
been sitting on the grass in the night air when both air and grass were
extraordinarily damp. In brief, she had been at her post soon after the
storm cleared on the preceding evening, but she had heard no
tooty-tooty; her overhearings were of sterner stuff.

"Well, what did Julia say _then_?" Aunt Carrie asked eagerly.

"She said she'd go up and lock herself in her room and stuff cushions
over her ears if grandpa didn't quit makin' such a fuss."

"And what did he say?"

"He made more rumpus than ever," said Florence. "He went on and on, and
told the whole thing over and over again; he seemed like he couldn't
tell it enough, and every time he told it his voice got higher and
higher till it was kind of squealy. He said he'd had his raincoat on and
he didn't want an umberella anyhow, and hadn't ever carried one a single
time in fourteen years! And he took on about Noble Dill and all t