Henry went and opened the drawers one by one and rummaged in them.

'It ain’t here!' he exclaimed; 'I bet somebody’s stolen it from you! The colored girl! I bet she’s stolen it!'

'Aw, she wouldn’t steal! She’s nice!' Wilbur exclaimed; but even as he spoke, he saw his mistake. Henry had made the descent to a course of deceit, of hideous disloyalty to a dear friend, fearfully easy! Wilbur descended. 'Maybe,' he faltered,' maybe she needed a ball awfully and just had to take it! Maybe she needed it awfully!'

'Well, ain’t you going to try to get it back from her?'

'Oh, no!' Wilbur cried in horror. 'I won’t say a word about it. It would hurt her feelings. She’s nice—'

'Well, I bet if it was my ball and anybody stole it I would raise an awful row!'

'I won’t say anything about it,' Wilbur repeated. 'It would hurt her feelings. And I guess you better go home now, Henry. Maybe your mother is wondering where you are.'

Wilbur adopted the formula with which other boys' mothers were wont to put him on the social inclined plane. He felt a desperate need to be rid of Henry. Henry departed without resentment.

A little later Wilbur’s father came. It was a comfort to have poppa there. Wilbur’s tired spirit leaned against his big, quiet strength. In the dusk Aunt Susan and poppa sat on the porch and talked. Wilbur stood beside poppa’s chair. It was peaceful and cool in the late evening. Wilbur liked to hear the noise the katydids made in the trees. It went on, over and over and over—

Suddenly, as if recollecting something he had forgotten, poppa put his hand into his coat pocket and drew out—It was the ball of Wilbur’s dreams. Poppa, still talking to Aunt Susan, was holding it out to him. He saw it in all its utterly desirable excellence, its natty charms, hard and heavy and smooth and gleaming white. Wilbur’s small brown fingers curved themselves feebly upon its taut sides. He did not speak, but his long-lashed eyes, brooding upon the perfection within his grasp, lifted for a moment to his father’s face a deep look of such intensity that poppa was startled.