en box cars, and dug up nothin' more
encouraging than a couple of boozy 'boes, I begun to think my
calculations was all wrong. I was just slidin' another door shut when
I notices a bundle of somethin' over in the far corner. I had half a
mind not to climb in; for it didn't look like anything alive, but I
takes a chance at it for luck, and the first thing I hears is a growl.
The next minute I has Togo by the collar and the kid up on my arm. It
was Gerald, all right, though he was that dirty and rumpled I hardly
knew him.

He just groans and grabs hold of me like he was afraid I was goin' to
get away. Why, the poor little cuss was so beat out and scared I
couldn't get a word from him for half an hour. But after awhile I
coaxed him to sit up on a stool and have a bite to eat, and when I've
washed off some of the grime, and pulled out a few splinters from his
hands, we gets a train back. First off I thought I'd 'phone Mr. and
Mrs. Greene, but then I changes my mind. "Maybe it'll do 'em good to
wait," thinks I.

We was half way back when Gerald looks up and says, "You won't take me
home, will you?"

"What's the matter with home, kid?" says I.

"Well," says he, and I could see by the struggle he was havin' with his
upper lip that it was comin' out hard, "mother says father isn't a nice
man, and father says I mustn't believe what she says at all,
and--and--I don't think I like either of them well enough to be their
little boy any more. I don't like being stolen so often, either."

"Stolen!" says I.

"Yes," says he. "You see, when I'm with father, mother is always
sending men to grab me up and take me off where she is. Then father
sends men to get me back, and--and I don't believe I've got any real
home any more. That's why I ran away. Wouldn't you?"

"Kid," says I, "I ain't got a word to say."

He was too tired and down in the mouth to do much conversing either.
All he wants is to curl up with his head against my shoulder and go to
sleep. After he wakes up from his nap he feels better, and when he
finds we're goin' back to my place he gets quite chipper. All the way
walkin' up from the station I tries to think of how it would be best to
break the news to him about the grand household scrap that was due to
be pulled off the minute we shows up. I couldn't do it, though, until
we'd got clear to the house.

"Now, youngster," says I, "there's a little surprise on tap for you
here, I guess. You walk up so