," since then, led by his
dog Bo'sn, he sang upon the streets to earn his livelihood. In the later
hours the little girl, also, wore another title--"Goober Glory"--because
she was one of the children employed by Antonio Salvatore, the peanut
man, to sell his wares on commission.

But grandpa, Glory, and Bo'sn had the long delightful mornings at home
and together; and this day, as usual, their talk turned upon the dream
of their lives--"Sailors' Snug Harbor."

"Now, grandpa, talk. Tell how 'tis. Do it fast an' picturey-like, 'less
I never can guess how to make this piece do. It's such a little patch
an' such a awful big hole! Posy Jane gets carelesser an' carelesser all
the time. This very last week that ever was she tore this jacket again.
An' I told her, I said: 'Jane, if you don't look out you'll never wear
this coat all next winter nohow.' An' she up an' laughed, just like she
didn't mind a thing like that. An' she paid me ten whole centses, she
did. But I love her. Jane's so good to everybody, to every single body.
Ain't she, grandpa?"

"Aye, aye, deary. I cal'late she done it a purpose. She makes her money
easy, Jane does. Just sets there on the bridge-end and sells second-hand
flowers to whoever'll buy. If she had to walk the streets----"

Glory was so surprised by this last sentence that she snapped her thread
off in the wrong place and wasted a whole needleful. Until yesterday,
she had never heard her grandfather speak in any but the most contented
spirit about his lot in life. Then he had twice lamented that he "didn't
know whatever was to become o' two poor creatur's like them," and now,
again, this gay morning, he was complaining--almost complaining. Glory
didn't feel, in the least, like a "poor creatur'." She felt as "chirpy
as a sparrow bird," over in City Hall park; and, if the sun didn't shine
in the Lane, she knew it was shining in the street beyond, so what
mattered?

Vaguely disturbed, the child laid her hand on his arm and asked, "Be you
sick, grandpa?"

He answered promptly and testily, "Sick? No, nor never was in my life.
Nothin' but blind an' that's a trifle compared to sickness. What you
askin' for? Didn't I eat my breakfast clean up?"

"Ye-es, but--but afterward you--you kicked Bo'sn, an' sayin' that about
'walkin' the street' just a singin'; why, I thought you liked it. I know
the folks like to hear you. You do roll out that about the 'briny wave'
just grand. I wish you'd sing it to Bo's