“Hello, baby. I know a grandma that’s going to be mighty happy, before long,” he said, standing just under the window and looking up at her.
“D’you know my gran’ma? S’e lives in a green house an’ s’e’s got five––hundred baby kittens for me to see! An’ I’m goin’ to bring one home wis me––but I do’no which one. D’you like yellow kittens, or litty gray kittens, or black ones?”
Gravely Lance studied the matter, his eyebrows pulled together, his mouth wearing the expression which had disturbed Mary Hope when he came to mend the lock on her door.
“I’d take––now, if your grandma has one that’s all spotted, you might take that, couldn’t you? Then some days you’d love the yellow spots, and some days you’d love the black spots, and some days––”
“Ooh! And I could call it all the nice names I want to call it!” The little girl pressed her hands together rapturously. “When my kitty’s got its yellow-spotty day, I’ll call him Goldy, and when––”
The engine bell clanged warning, the wheels began slowly to turn.
“Ooh! You’ll get left and have to walk!” cried the little girl, in big-eyed alarm.
“All right, baby––you take the spotted one!” Lance called over his shoulder as he ran. He was smiling when he swung up the steps. No longer did he feel that he must kill the harsh-voiced man.
He went forward to his own section, sat down and stared out of the window. As the memory of the little girl faded he drifted into gloomily reviewing 229 the things he had heard said of his family. Were they really pariahs among their kind? Outlawed because of the blood that flowed in their veins?