“I think some society took it,” Mrs. Van-dyne answered. “I'll have Jim look it up. No doubt Jim can have the boy returned to Peter Lane.”
“I'll do what I can,” said Mr. Vandyne, but Mrs. Montgomery was silent while the carriage traveled a full mile.
“I wouldn't!” she said at last “No, I wouldn't! You might see that the boy is where he is properly cared for, but I think it will be best to let the Jack-knife Man earn the boy himself. I know what he has been, and I can see what he hopes to be. If he could step outside himself and see as we see, he would say what I say. The best thing for him is to have something to work for.”
“He could work for money, like the rest of us,” suggested Mr. Vandyne.
“Oh, you utter Philistine!” cried Mrs. Montgomery. “You must wait until he gets the habit, and then—!”
“Then what?”
“Then he will have a bank-book,” laughed Mrs. Montgomery.
The winter passed rapidly enough for Peter. Between the stockings, and the vision of the children Mrs. Montgomery had conjured up, and his eagerness to win a home for Buddy, Peter worked as faithfully as an artist should, and he made many raids on the farmer's wood-pile to secure dry, well-seasoned, maple wood.
When the vision of Buddy's eyes grew dim Peter was always able to bring it back by humming Booge's song, and before the winter was over Peter had crowded his clock shelf with toys and had constructed another shelf, which was filling rapidly, for while he made many duplicates he kept one of each for Buddy—“Buddy's menagerie,” he called them. Thus he kept his own interest alive, too, for when it flagged he made a new animal, making it as he thought Buddy would like it made and so that it would bring that happy “Ho! ho! That's a funny old squ'arl, Uncle Peter.”