every one, and then called her
"Cry-baby."

At last the Sabbath-school superintendent learned that Pete was born and
had lived all his life in a tenement house in a great city. His father
died in State's Prison. After that it seemed to Wee Janet that there was
almost no hope for Pete.

One Thursday morning the little girl's mother asked her to carry a pail
of buttermilk to Aunt Nancy. "You needn't be afraid to go by the
Perkins' house this morning," she said, "because your father was told
that Pete went fishing to-day."

Wee Janet was half way to Aunt Nancy's when not far up the road she
beheld Mr. Mason's red cow eating grass outside instead of inside the
fence.

"Oh, the hooking cow!" exclaimed the child, almost dropping her pail of
buttermilk.

At that moment the red cow lifted her head. It is possible she thought
that Janet was a big clover blossom. Anyway, on came the cow lowing
gently. Mr. Mason always said the cow was harmless.

Janet, too frightened to stir, screamed in terror. That scream brought a
barefooted boy running over the fields. That boy was Pete.

"What's the matter, Weejan?" he called.

At that moment Pete looked beautiful to Wee Janet. It seemed to her
that she never saw a finer looking boy than Pete, the ragged, when he
picked up a stick and made the cow turn around and go the other way.

[Illustration: "_Janet screamed in terror._"]

"Come on, Weejan," called Pete. "I won't let her hurt yez. I'll drive
her back in her pasture and lock the gate. Yez see if I don't!"

After the cow was in her pasture Pete insisted upon going to Aunt
Nancy's with Wee Janet. "Yer might see a rattler," he explained, as if
such a thing were probable.

"Now I'll take yer home," the boy observed when Wee Janet found him
waiting at the gate. "Yer too little to be out alone."

Janet's mother thanked Pete for taking care of her small daughter. Then
she gave him a piece of gingerbread. After that she showed him Wee
Janet's robin's nest and told him all about how the mother robin worked
to build the nest, and how long she sat upon the eggs before the little
nestlings were hatched. Father Robin scolded the boy so vigorously Wee
Janet was afraid Pete's feelings might be hurt. "You see," she
explained, "he knows that you're a stranger. Now, Father Robin, don't
make such a fuss. If Pete took care of me, he'd take care of your
babies, too. Wouldn't you, Pete.

"Sure!" Pete replied with a broad grin.

From that