esently asked, "Who is Mr. Bucket?"

"Don't you know Mr. Bucket?" said Johnny. "He keeps that grocery on
Hill Street. He gave me the box I made this old thing out of."

"Oh," said Tommy's father, and turned and looked the sled over again.

"What was the matter with your cow?" asked Tommy.

"Broke her leg--right here," and Johnny pulled up his trousers and
showed just where the leg was broken below the knee. "The doctor said
she must be killed, and so she was; but Mr. Bucket said he could have
saved her if the 'Siety would've let him. He'd 'a just swung her up
until she got well."

"How?" asked Tommy, much interested.

"What Society?" asked his father.

Johnny answered the last question first. "'Pervention of Cruelty,'" he
said, shortly.

"Oh," said Tommy's father.

"I know how she broke her leg," said Johnny.

"How did she break her leg?" inquired Tommy.

"A boy done it. I know him and I know he done it, and some day I'm
going to catch him when he ain't looking for me."

"You have not had a cow since?" inquired Tommy's father. "Then you do
not have to go and drive her up and milk her when the weather is
cold?"

"Oh, I would not mind that," said Johnny cheerily. "I'd drive her up
if the weather was as cold as Greenland, and milk her, too, so I had
her. I used to love to feed her and I didn't mind carryin' milk
around; for I used to get money for it for my mother to buy things
with; but now, since that boy broke her leg and the 'Siety killed
her----"

He did not say what there was since; he just stopped talking and
presently Tommy's father said: "You do not have so much money since?"

"No, sir!" said Johnny, "and my mother has to work a heap harder, you
see."

"And you work too?"

"Some," said Johnny. "I sell papers and clean off the sidewalk when
there is snow to clean off, and run errands for Mr. Bucket and do a
few things. Well, I've got to go along," he added, "I've got some
things to do now. I was just trying this old sled over on the hill to
see how she would go. I've got some work to do now"; and he trotted
off, whistling and dragging his sled behind him.

As Tommy and his father turned into their grounds, his father asked,
"Where did he say he lived?"

"Wait, I'll show you," said Tommy, proud of his knowledge. "Down there
[pointing]. See that little house down in the bottom, away over beyond
the cow-pasture?"

"How do you know he lives there?"

"Because I've been there. He's got goats,