lent a moment. "Go on!" cried the child. "You ain't half
s'posing, brown man."

"No more I am!" said Calvin Parks. "Well, little un, I dono as I can
play this game real well, after all. S'pose after a spell the boy's
mother went away too. Where? Well, she'd go to the best place there was,
you know; nat'rally she would."

"That's heaven!" said the child decidedly.

"Jes' so! to be sure!" Calvin assented. "S'pose she went to heaven; to
see after the little gal, likely; hey? That'd leave father and the boy
alone, wouldn't it? Well now, s'pose father couldn't stand it real well
without her. What then, little un? S'pose the more he tried it the less
he liked it, till bumby he begun to take things to make him forget, as
warn't the best things in the world for him to take. S'pose he did; do
you blame him?"

"N--no!" said the child. "Unless you mean stole 'em!"

"No! no! not that kind of takin', little un; 'tother kind, like when you
take med'cine. S'pose he kind o' made believe _'twas_ med'cine for a
spell. Then s'pose he got so he warn't jest like himself, and spoke kind
o' sharp, and took a strap to the boy now and then, harder than he would
by natur', you wouldn't blame him, would you? Not a mite! But s'pose
things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one
of 'em. Then--s'pose one night--when he warn't himself, mind you!--he
shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire.
You wouldn't blame him for that either, would you? Poor father!"

He paused.

"What do you s'pose then?" cried the child eagerly. "Did the house burn
up?"

Calvin made a silent gesture toward the ruined cellar. Something in it
struck the child silent too. She crept nearer, and slid her hand into
Calvin's.

"You don't s'pose they was burned, do you?" she said in an awestruck
whisper.

"No, they warn't burned," said Calvin slowly. "But father never helt his
head up again, and 'twarn't a great while before he was gone too, after
mother and the little gal. So then the boy was left alone. See?"

"_Poor_ brown boy!" said the child. "S'pose what he did then!"

"S'pose he lit out!" said Calvin Parks; "And s'pose I light out too,
little gal. It's gettin' towards sundown, and I've got quite a ways to
go before night."

He rose, and stretched his brown length, towering a great height above
the rose-bush.

"But before I go," he added; "s'pose we see what hossy's got in back of
him. I shouldn't wonder a m