"Jimsy," answered the boy. "An' Specks, he's me chum; he goes to Mister Middleton's, next door."
Specks and Jimsy! The first citizen helplessly cleared his throat and summoned Judith.
She came in a spotless apron no whiter than her hair. She was spare—Aunt Judith Sawyer—spare and patient as the wife of a provident man may well be who sees no need for servants, and her primness was of a gentler, vaguer sort than that of Abner Sawyer. Jimsy glanced up into her sweet, tired face and his eager eyes claimed her with a bewildering smile of welcome. Then because Jimsy's experience with clean aprons and trimly parted hair was negligible almost to the point of non-existence, it became instantly imperative that he should polish the toe of one worn shoe with the sole of the other and study the result and Aunt Judith with furtive interest.
"Judith," said the first citizen, not wholly at his ease, "Mr.—er—ah—Mr. Jimsy has arrived."
Jimsy snickered.
"Naw, naw, nix!" he said. "Jimsy's the handle. I'm a stray, I am. Hain't got no folks. Mom Dorgan says ye have to have folks to have a bunch-name. I'm the Christmas kid."
"To be sure you are," said Aunt Judith gently, "to be sure. And where are your things?"
Jimsy's thin little face reddened.
"Hain't only got one rig," he mumbled, "an' that warn't fitten to wear. Mom Dorgan borried these duds fur me. She—she's awful good that way when she's sober."