they went away; Charlie clumped
about so, and made such a noise, and little Jenny would take away his
picture books or the toys that had been given him in the hospital.

Then Polly would call her a naughty girl, and snatch them from her, and
so his little wooden horse lost its head, and his railway train was
uncoupled, and one wheel pulled off; and when old Mrs. Rowe found him
crying, all she said was, "Dear! dear! don't ye fret now, don't ye!" and
when that did not make him stop crying, she said he was a bad boy to
make such a work about nothing. When she was a girl, nobody had frail
trade like that, all painted and gaudy, to play with; a bit of an
oyster-shell or a crab's claw was enow for them. He had got into such a
caddle as never was too!

So she began to shake up his couch, not in the least guessing how she
was hurting and jarring his poor hip; and when he cried out and tried to
drive her away, she thought it was all naughtiness, and declared that he
was such a bad boy that she should go away and leave him to himself.

The Lees dined at one, and work did not begin till two; so Amy had a
good half-hour to spend on the little boy before she was wanted again.

"Going to see Ted, be ye?" said Mrs. Rowe, as she stood at her door,
while Amy opened the wicket. "A proper fractious little to-ad he be,
upon my word an' honour! They do spile children in them hospitals, so as
one can't do nothing with 'em."

Amy looked at Mrs. Rowe, a very clean woman, but with a face and fists
that looked as if they had been cut out of the toughest part of an old
pollard ash, and a mouth that shut up like the snap of a gin. "Poor
little fellow!" said Amy, and in she went.

She was on her knees at once by the poor little boy, coaxing him and
comforting him, and feeding him with some of the stew that Aunt
Charlotte had kept warm for him. Then he told how Polly had taken away
his horse and his train and broken them. Amy looked about, and
presently found the wheel. A little hooking together was all the repair
the train wanted, and Edwin was soon happy with it; while, as to the
horse, he was past Amy's present mending, but she would take it home,
and next time father had out the glue-pot she would put on the head.

Then Amy brought out a little book with the early Bible history in
pictures. She showed Edwin one every day when she came, and told him
about it whenever he did not know the story before, or helped him to
enter a little more i