Peaches looked at him in steady wonderment.
"I guess you're pretty tired, an' you need to sleep a while, or somepin," she said. "If you wasn't about sick yourself, you'd know 'at anybody 'cept you 'ull get their dam-gone heads ripped off if they touches me, nelse you say so. Course, you found me! Course, they'd a-got me, if you hadn't took me. Course, I'm yours! Course, it's nix on Junior, an' it's nix on Peter if you say so. Mickey, I jus' love you an' love you. I'll go back now if you say so, I tell you. Mickey what's the matter?"
She stretched up her arms, and Mickey sank into them. He buried his face beside hers and for the first time she patted him, and whispered to him as she did to her doll. She rubbed her cheek against his, crooned over him, and held him tight while he gulped down big sobs.
"Mickey, tell me," she begged, like a little mother. "Tell me honey?
Are you got a pain anywhere?"
"No!" he said. "Maybe I was kind of strung up, getting you here and being so awful scared about hurting you; but it's all right now. You are here, and things are going to be fine, only, will you, cross your heart, always and forever remember this: it's nix on Junior, or any boy, who ain't got a family, and doesn't understand?"
"Yes Mickey, cross my heart, an' f'rever, an' ever; an' Mickey, you must get the soap. I slipped, an' said the worse yet. I didn't mean to, but Mickey, I guess you can't trust me. I guess you got to soap me, or beat me, or somepin awful. Go on an' do it, Mickey."
"Why crazy!" said Mickey. "You're mixed up. You didn't say anything! What you said was all rightest ever; rightest of anything I ever heard. It was just exactly what I wanted you to say. I just loved what you said."
"Well if I ever!" cried Peaches. "Mickey, you was so mixed up you didn't hear me. I got 'nother chance. Goody, goody! Now show me the cow!"
"All right!" said Mickey. "I'll talk with Mrs. Harding and see how she thinks I best go at it. Lily, you won't ever, ever forget that particular nix, will you?"
"Not ever," she promised, and lifted her lips to seal the pact with a kiss that meant more to Mickey than all that had preceded it.