He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.
"Now, what is it?"
"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know where it is?"
"Where did you leave it?"
"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.
"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"
He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's, and I've got to get it quick!"
Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet shelf, the other day."
A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.
When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.