p hidden.

"Old General Humidity hasn't shirked his job a minute to-day," Bob
Strahan told Miss Carter as they left the car and walked up the block
to the Washington together.

In front of them sauntered a boy with a dog at his heels. The boy was
a sturdy young fellow of perhaps fourteen, very shabby as to clothes
but very dauntless as to manner. The dog was a fox terrier with one
black spot over his left eye like a patch. Bob Strahan whistled and
snapped his fingers at him.

"I've always meant to have a fox terrier some day," he told Miss
Carter. "They're so intelligent."

But this particular fox terrier, while he wagged his tail and looked
around to see who whistled, kept close to the heels of the boy who
looked carefully at the houses as if in search of one. When he came to
the Washington he stood and stared up at the long brick wall with its
many windows peering so curiously down at him, much as Mary Rose had
stared less than a month before.

"Well, young man," Bob Strahan said pleasantly, "is there anyone here
you wish to see?"

"Gee," exclaimed the boy with a fervor that seemed to come from his
dusty heels, "I hadn't any idea it would be such a big place!"

"It isn't a cottage," agreed Bob Strahan amiably, "nor yet a bungalow.
But a roof has to be some size to cover a couple of dozen families.
What particular family are you interested in, may I ask?" He stooped
to pat the black-eyed fox terrier as it sniffed his ankles. "Some
dog!" he told the boy.

Down the street came Mary Rose and Miss Thorley. Mary Rose had been to
the bakery for rolls for supper and had met Miss Thorley on the corner.
The little group by the steps of the Washington could hear her voice
before they saw her and the boy swung around and listened.

"I used to think that if I wasn't a human being, made in the image of
God, I'd like to be the milkman's horse in Mifflin," he heard Mary Rose
say and he chuckled.

"Why, Mary Rose?" laughed Miss Thorley.

"Because it was so friendly to go from house to house every morning
with milk for the babies and cream for the coffee. Everyone in Mifflin
was a friend to old Whiteface. Why--why!" she broke her story short to
stand still and stare at the boy and the dog, who were both staring at
her. The boy's face was one broad grin and the dog's tail was wagging
frantically. "Why, Solomon Crocker! It's never you! Oh, Solomon!" as
he darted to her. "I've missed you more than tongue could