“Yes, yes, don’t cry any more. Eddie will tell him; don’t cry; he will.”
Struggling down from the poor woman’s arms, the little fellow clenched his small white fists, and rubbed the tears from his baby-eyes, half-grieved, half-belligerent, while he marched up to the superintendent, who greeted him with an extended hand, smiling kindly.
“Well, Eddie, my boy, where’s your hand?”
Eddie hid his little clenched fist in the folds of his dress, and received these advances with a defiant pout.
“Mammy wants me to go home, and I will go home!” he said, while his little form swelled and struggled with a rising sob.
“And so you shall, to a nice, big home, where you will have lots of little boys to play with.”
“I don’t want no boys to play with, but Pat and mammy,” answered the little fellow, walking backward toward his nurse.
“But you shall live in a grand, big house.”
“Mammy lives in a grand, big house,” answered the child, quite convinced that his shanty-home was equal to any palace. “I like her grand home!”
“But mammy hasn’t got cherry-trees, and apple-orchards, and meadows full of clover,” said the officer, amused, and yet touched by the child’s resolute air.