The boy, with his eyes fixed upon the covering that in spite of the heat of the day hid the man in the wheel chair from his waist down, said with the cruel insistency of childhood, "Ain't yer got no legs—honest, now, ain't yer?"
The Interpreter laughed understandingly. Placing the unfinished basket on a low table that held his tools and the material for his work within reach of his hand, he threw aside the light shawl. "See!" he said.
For a moment the children gazed, breathlessly, at those shrunken and twisted limbs that resembled the limbs of a strong man no more than the empty, flapping sleeves of a scarecrow resemble the arms of a living human body.
"They are legs all right," said the Interpreter, still smiling, "but they're not much good, are they? Do you think you could beat me in a race?"
"Gee!" exclaimed the boy.
Two bright tears rolled down the thin, dirty cheeks of the little girl's tired face, and she turned to look away over the dirty Flats, the smoke-grimed mills, and the golden fields of grain in the sunshiny valley, to something that she seemed to see in the far distant sky.
With a quick movement the Interpreter again hid his useless limbs.
"And now don't you think you might tell me about yourselves? What is your name, my boy?"
"I'm Bobby Whaley," answered the lad. "She's my sister, Maggie."
"Oh, yes," said the Interpreter. "Your father is Sam Whaley. He works in the Mill."