Mrs. Swinburne, having read in a child-study book that dry food was bone-building, had brought her youngest up on long crumbly strips of zwieback, and he was seldom seen without one.
“What you givin’ us?” asked the conductor.
“I want zwieback,” answered Elsmere cheerfully, in the persistent tone he had learned to value for its efficacy.
“Where was your ma goin’?” asked the conductor.
30“I want zwieback,” replied Elsmere.
“Let me try,” suggested a soft-voiced little lady. “I talked with his mother quite a bit while she was on. Want to find your mamma, little boy, and go to Grandma’s and play with all the pigs and chickies?”
“I want zwieback.”
“You talked with the woman, did you?” said the conductor. “Did you find out what her name was?”
“Let me see. Yes. It’s Peters. She was talking about going to his folks’, two miles out of Edgewater. She’ll be worried to death about this one.”
“I should think she might be,” remarked the conductor grimly, “for fear he’d come back. Here, you young Sweebock, you get off here.”