"Jim Gray has no father."
He sang the words, gently intoning, as if he took no responsibility of them any more than if they were the words of a song, for Bennie was a cautious child, and while he did not see that the absence of a father was anything to worry over, still, from the general context of the conversation he had heard, he believed it was something of a handicap.
The person concerned in his announcement, being busy with a game of marbles, did not notice. So quite emboldened, Bennie sang again, "Jim Gray has no father—and never had one."
The marble game came to an end.
"Do you mean me?" asked Jim, with a puzzled look.
The others stopped playing, too. It was a fearsome moment. Jim Gray was the most unconcerned of the group.
"That's all you know about it," he said carelessly, as he shut one eye and took steady aim at the "dib" in the ring, "I've had two."
"Nobody can have two fathers—on earth," said Bessie Brownlees piously—"we have one father on earth and one in heaven."
"Mine ain't on earth," said Jimmy, "mine are both in heaven."
That was a poser.