“Let me in! Anybody home?”
Something about the homely words released a spring, and my heart jumped.
“Who is it?”
“Me! Open the door!”
I unlatched the kitchen shutter and peered out. A diminutive youngster, too short to be visible above the window-sash, was coming around from the side of the captain’s wing.
“Gee, I pretty near went away again, only I saw the window was lighted.”
“Why didn’t you go to the door?”
“I did! The front door.”
That was why I had not heard him.
“I would have gone,” the boy continued, still full of his own troubles, “only he give me the quarter before I came.”