As I was passing down the icy steps a piping child’s voice called to me, “Mister, please give me a lift!”
There at the foot of the steps, standing in the snow, was a slender slip of a girl, yellow and earnest, say ten years old, with a shawl pinned over her head. She held in her hand a rope, and this rope was tied to a hand-sled. On this sled sat a little boy, shivering, dumpy and depressed, his bare red hands clutching the seat.
“Mister, I say, please give me a lift!”
“Sure!” I said.
It was a funny sight.
This girl seemed absolutely unconscious of herself. She was not at all abashed, and very much in earnest about something.
Evidently she had watched the people coming out and had waited until one appeared that she thought safe to call on for help.
“Of course I’ll give you a lift—what is it you want me to do?”
“I’ve got to go inside and see the Judge. It’s about my brudder here. He is six, goin’ on seven, and they sent him home from school ’cause they said he wasn’t old enough. I’m going to have that teacher ’rested. I’ve got the Bible here that says he’s six years old. If you’ll carry the book I’ll bring Billy and the sled!”
“Where is the Bible?” I asked.