CHAPTER II
A PRINCE
Promptly at nine o'clock, young Dale Lynch turned the key in the door of "Tony Sebastino, Groceries" and started, whistling, homeward. Three times a week, from the close of school until nine o'clock, he worked in the store, snatching a dinner of bananas, or bread and cheese, between customers. Because "Mom" had whispered that there were to be "dumplin's" this night and that she would keep some warm for him, and because the wind whipped chillingly through his thin clothing, he broke into a run.
His homeward way led him past a bit of open triangle which in the neighborhood was dignified by the name of park, a dreary place now, dirty straw stacked about the fountain, dry leaves and papers cluttering the brown earth and whipping against the iron palings of the fence. Dale, still whistling, turned its corner and ran, full-tilt, upon a bit of humanity clinging, like the paper and leaves, to the fence.
"Giminy Gee!" Dale jumped back in alarm. Then: "Did I scare you, kid? Oh, say, what's the matter?" For the face that turned to his was red and swollen with weeping. "Y'lost?" This was Dale's natural conclusion, for the hour was late, and the child a very small one.
"I lost—my Cynthia."
"Your—what?"
"My—my Cynthia. She's my b-bestest doll. I forgot her." The voice trailed off in a wail.
Dale, touched by her woe, looked about him. Certainly no Cynthia was visible. By rapid questioning on his part he drew from her the story of her desertion. She had played a nice game of running 'round and 'round and counting the "things," waiting for Mr. Tony; Cynthia did not like to run because it shook her eyes, so she had put her down on the edge of the straw where the wind would not blow on her. And then Mr. Tony had come and had told her to "hustle along" and she "had runned away and for-g-got Cynthia!"
"Well, I guess she's somebody else's Cynthia now, kid. Things don't stay long in the parks 'round here."