“ ‘And that’s not the worst of it,’ I went on quick, keeping him hot and not giving him time to think. ‘We thought you was from a nice, well-to-do family. Here’s Mr. Little Bear, a chief of the Cherokees, entitled to wear nine otter tails on his Sunday blanket, and Professor Binkly, who plays Shakespeare and the banjo, and me, that’s got hundreds of dollars in that black tin box in the wagon, and we’ve got to be careful about the company we keep. That man tells me your folks live ’way down in little Hencoop Alley, where there are no sidewalks, and the goats eat off the table with you.’

“That kid was almost crying now. ‘’Tain’t so,’ he splutters. ‘He—he don’t know what he’s talking about. We live on Poplar Av’noo. I don’t ’sociate with goats. What’s the matter with you?’

“ ‘Poplar Avenue,’ says I, sarcastic. ‘Poplar Avenue! That’s a street to live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You can throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don’t talk to me about Poplar Avenue.’

“ ‘It’s—it’s miles long, says the kid. ‘Our number’s 862 and there’s lots of houses after that. What’s the matter with—aw, you make me tired, Jeff.’

“ ‘Well, well, now,’ says I. ‘I guess that man made a mistake. Maybe it was some other boy he was talking about. If I catch him I’ll teach him to go around slandering people.’ And after supper I goes up-town and telegraphs to Mrs. Conyers, 862 Poplar Avenue, Quincy, Ill., that the kid is safe and sassy with us, and will be held for further orders. In two hours an answer comes to hold him tight, and she’ll start for him by next train.

“The next train was due at 6 p.m. the next day, and me and John Tom was at the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in vain for the big Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is Mr. Little Bear in the human habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes is patented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these things John Tom had grafted on him as college along with metaphysics and the knock-out guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is some yellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might have thought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory that subscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirt-sleeves of evenings.

“Then the train rolled in, and a little woman in a grey dress, with a sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells ‘Mamma,’ and she cries ‘Oh!’ and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an’ John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in a way to convince, and there is no incidental music by the orchestra. I made a few illiterate requisitions upon the art of conversation, at which the lady smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And then Mr. Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into which education can fracture the wind of speech. I could see the kid’s mother didn’t quite place John Tom; but it seemed she was apprised in his dialects, and she played up to his lead in the science of making three words do the work of one.

“That kid introduced us, with some footnotes and explanations that made things plainer than a week of rhetoric. He danced around, and punched us in the back, and tried to climb John Tom’s leg. ‘This is John Tom, mamma,’ says he. ‘He’s a Indian. He sells medicine in a red wagon. I shot him, but he wasn’t wild. The other one’s Jeff. He’s a fakir, too. Come on and see the camp where we live, won’t you, mamma?’

“It is plain to see that the life of the woman is in that boy. She has got him again where her arms can gather him, and that’s enough. She’s ready to do anything to please him. She hesitates the eighth of a second and takes another look at these men. I imagine she says to herself about John Tom, ‘Seems to be a gentleman, if his hair don’t curl.’ And Mr. Peters she disposes of as follows: ‘No ladies’ man, but a man who knows a lady.’