Even the tired-looking probation officer looked up and smiled.
"What does a little girl like you want with a bureau?" asked the judge.
"So's I won't have to keep me duds under the bed."
"That's a commendable ambition. But what about these other charges; truancy from school, fighting with the boys, throwing mud, and so on?"
"I never th'ow mud, 'ceptin' when I'm th'owin' back," explained Nance.
"A nice distinction," said the judge. "Is this child's mother present?"
Mrs. Snawdor, like a current that has been restrained too long, surged eagerly forward, and overflowed her conversational banks completely.
"Well, I ain't exactly her mother, but I'm just the same as her mother. You ast anybody in Calvary Alley. Ast Mr. Burks here, ast Mrs. Smelts what I been to her ever since she was a helpless infant baby. When Bud Molloy lay dyin' he says to the brakeman, 'You tell my wife to be good to Nance,'"
"So she's your stepchild?"
"Yes, sir, an' Bud Molloy was as clever a man as ever trod shoe-leather. So was Mr. Yager. Nobody can't say I ever had no trouble with my two first. They wasn't what you might call as smart a man as Snawdor, but they wasn't no fool."