ght and found
both water-pail and wood-box empty, but he went serenely on with his
supper. No matter what happened, nothing ever interfered with his
appetite.

"Those chillun are gettin' as bad as little young turkeys 'bout strayin'
away from home," mumbled Aunt Susan one morning, as she watched them
slip through the fence soon after Sheba had left the house. "An' they
ain't anything wussah than young turkeys for runnin' off. 'Peahs like
that kind of poultry is nevah satisfied with where they is, but always
want to be where they isn't. It's the same with those chillun."

Although Aunt Susan did not know it, there was one place where John Jay
and his flock of two were always content to stay; that was on the steps
at the side door of the church. Nearly every afternoon found them
sitting there in a solemn row, waiting for the shadows to grow long
across the grass, for it was then that George oftenest came to play on
the organ. He always smiled on the three grave little figures, waiting
so patiently for the music of his vesper hymns.

It touched the lonely man to have John Jay follow him about, with that
same wistful look in his eyes that a faithful dog has for its master.
Sometimes he sat down on the steps beside the children and talked to
them awhile, just to see the boy's face light up with pleasure.

It was a mystery to Sheba, how a dignified minister could care for the
companionship of such a harum-scarum little creature as her grandson.
She did know the tie that bound them, but their natures were as near
akin as the acorn and the oak. In John Jay the man saw his own childhood
with all its unanswered questions and dumb, groping ambitions; while the
boy, looking up to his "Rev'und Gawge" as the highest standard of all
manliness, felt faint stirrings within, of the possibility of such
growth for himself.

Early one morning George sent a message to Sheba, asking that John Jay
might be allowed to spend the day with him and help watch the toll-gate,
while Mars' Nat was in town. That morning still stands out in the boy's
memory, as one of the happiest he ever spent.

Along in the middle of the afternoon, when travel on the turnpike had
almost ceased on account of the heat, George went into his room and lay
down. John Jay sat on the floor of the porch, holding the old hound's
head in his lap, and lazily smoothing its long soft ears. He felt very
important when a wagon rattled up and the toll was dropped into his
finger