“If you please, sir, Thorpe is waiting to know about that No. 7,” said somebody in a white paper cap.
“In a moment, John,” said Mr. Smith, sitting down in his chair and taking Tod in his arms. “Now, papa’s little man, what is the matter?”
“Just fifty cents, please, papa, for Maybee and me to buy choc’late. My wants it so bad, papa,—jus’ the worst kind.”
“Dear me, that’s very bad, isn’t it? and Sweet-tooth has been very patient of late, to be sure. So Maybee is coming to a party! Well, well, there’s a bright, new, silver half-dollar. How’ll that do? because papa’s in a dreadful hurry.”
Nose, chin, whiskers and all,—how Tod covered them with kisses, squeezing his “own-y to-ny papa” tight as two little arms could.
“Guess my knew how to find out certain true,” he said, sitting with Maybee under the grape-arbor half an hour later, both faces well plastered with chocolate. “Guess the own papas see through a hurry, quick ’nough, when my asks ’em weal hard.”
VIII.
THE HELPING HAND.
“Will He plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.”
When Dick came back to school you would scarcely have known him, he had grown so tall and stout. The younger boys looked up at him admiringly; the older ones held a little aloof.