woman, dressed always in starched
gingham and apron, with a red bandanna handkerchief on her head.

"Whar you been, honey?" she demanded; then sternly: "Whose chile dat you
got wid you?"

Tommy did not reply; in fact, he didn't know; what's more, he didn't
care. It was Joe, that was enough.

She was towering above them now.

"Who yo' ma an' pa, chile?" she demanded of the miniature Marco Polo who
had come home with her charge. "Whar you come from?"

Marco Polo did not reply. He only grinned up at her, an impertinent,
scrappy sort of grin. In a hard school he had learned the virtue of
silence.

"I found him in the woods," volunteered Tommy at last. "He's lost an'
he's goin' to stay wif me."

"Stay wid you, honey?" cried the old woman. "No, honey," she shook her
head. "He ain't gwine stay wid you."

And she meant it, too, every word of it. Society to her was divided into
quality white folks like the Earles, black folks like herself, and poor
white trash like this waif; and between the first class and the third
was there a great gulf fixed.

"We gwine fin' who he ma an' pa is, honey, an' sen' him home," was her
verdict.

"You ain't goin' to send him home!" cried Tommy, his face suddenly
crimson. "He ain't got no home. You ain't goin' to send him anywhere.
He's goin' to stay here wif me. He ain't had anything to eat but
blackberries. He's hungry as"--the phrase was almost out, but he
throttled it--"He's hungry!"

The old woman looked at the waif shrewdly.

"You hongry?" she asked. "Well, one thing's shore--nobody ever come to
Freedom Hill hongry an' went away hongry. You sho' gwine have somethin'
to eat. Den we sen' you home."

She led the way into a kitchen, spacious and cool. She made them wash
their hands while she looked on, shaking her head at the condition of
one pair of them. She set them down to a table and placed before them
biscuits and butter and jam, and cold milk from the refrigerator. But
while she performed this act of hospitality her face showed the
determination she had expressed.

The kitchen opened by a white-panelled passageway into the dining room,
and the dining room into the big front hall. She left the two of them
and went into the hall. They heard her ringing the telephone, and while
they ate her talk came to them.

"Dat you, Mr. Davis? Mr. Davis, dis me. Mr. Davis, dey's a strange chile
here. Tommy say he foun' him in de woods. He won't tell who he ma an' pa
is, or whar he come