to share it with you. Tramps have to work here, you
know--"

"Oh, Mr. Tramp! You are my tramp that broke the raw egg all over your
potato, aren't you?" cried Peace with undisguised joy. "And you never
stole that cake, did you?"

"What cake, child?"

"The one Faith was baking the morning you ate breakfast here 'bout a
year ago."

"I never stole a cake in my life,--or anything else."

"There, I knew it! I told them so at the time. Was it--have you lost any
money around here?"

"Money?" he echoed, his face the picture of innocence, as he deftly set
the table and beat up an omelette. "I should say not! Why?"

"'Cause we found some on the gatepost the night you were here, and I
thought maybe you had lost it. No, I didn't think so, either. Gail
thought you might have lost it." Into his ears she poured the whole
story of the long, hard year.

"And so you thought,--or Gail thought I had lost the money you found on
the gatepost! Well, don't you think it would be a funny tramp who would
have all that money with him!"

Peace's face fell, and she slowly admitted, "Yes, I s'pose it would, but
I thought maybe you might be a story-book prince. Those things _always_
happen in books. But Gail won't use the money, 'cause she says someone
might come along and claim it some day. When mamma was a little girl
there was a queer old man lived in her town that people called crazy. He
used to give pretty things to the children and then months later he'd go
around and c'llect them and give them to someone else. Maybe that's the
kind of a man who leaves the money on the gatepost. It has happened
twice there, and once in the barn. Gail says we can't tell, and 'twould
be terrible embracing"--she meant embarrassing--"if he should try to
c'llect after we had spent the money."

"That's a fact," agreed the tramp, "but I think she could spend the
money without any such fears, because I think the fairies brought it."

"Do you b'lieve in fairies?" cried Peace in shocked surprise.

"Oh, yes, and I always shall. I don't think the fairies fly around like
butterflies, the way they are pictured in books. I believe they live in
the hearts of men."

"Then how could they bring money and pin it to the gatepost and grain
sacks? They use sure-enough, every-day pins."

"Oh, maybe they whisper to some good friend that a little extra money
would make things easier at the brown house, or the green one, or the
gray one, and this friend, who has lots of