The judge nodded, his eyes studying the small earnest face.
“Miss Laura must find that good home right away,” he said. “Of course you want to know where you are going.”
“I hope she’ll be the kind that likes boys,” Jim said after a thoughtful pause. “Do you think she will?”
“Who?”
“The woman in that good home. They don’t all, you know. Some of ’em think boys are dreadful noisy and bothering, and some think they eat too much. I eat a lot sometimes——” he ended with an anxious frown.
The judge found it necessary just then to put his hand over his eyes. He muttered something about the light hurting them, and then Laura came in and told Jim it was bedtime. He said good-night, holding out his small stubby hand. The judge’s big one grasped it and held it a moment.
“We had a nice talk, didn’t we?” Jim said, and with the smile that made his homely little face radiant for a moment, he added, “It sure is nice to talk with a man,” and he went off wondering what the judge was laughing about.
He was not laughing when Laura came downstairs again after tucking up the boy in bed. She so hated to turn out the light and leave him in the dark, but she always did it. Now she told her father what Jim had said about that the first night.
The judge made no comment, but after a moment he remarked, “The boy is rather worried about the home you are to find for him. It ought to be settled. Have you any place in view?”
“No. To tell the truth, father, I can’t bear to have him go away. Would you mind if I keep him here a while longer? You are so much away, and he is company for me, and very little trouble. I shall miss him dreadfully when he goes.”