"Well, I know more than that," Steve said. "I've been to Greenville and found out about him from the people at the settlement house. A fruit dealer reported him to the police for stealing bananas, and the police passed the case on to them. The kid lives with a man named Grimsley, in a shack down by the river, in the gas-tank section. You know what that neighbourhood is, John.
"The settlement house questioned the neighbours. It seems that the kid's parents are dead, and that Grimsley is an uncle by marriage. He's a brute, even for the gas-tank section. The neighbours hear him beating the little devil—see him doing it! He threatens the kid with policemen all the time. The result is that the child lives in deadly terror of all policemen, and will run like a rabbit at the sight of one."
"Oh, poor little thing!" cried Mrs. Davis, and Davis growled something that was lost in the tangle of his beard.
Tommy heard his father knock the ashes out of his pipe.
"The settlement-house people," he went on, "are taking steps to get control of the child. They've laid the case before Judge Fowler. You know what that means, John. If anybody has any trouble with the judge it'll be Grimsley, the uncle."
"Steve," said Mrs. Davis, "you've seen the child. Is he a nice child?"
"I guess all kids are nice according to their chances," said Earle. "This one hasn't had any chances."
"The reason I ask," said Mrs. Davis, "is that John and I have talked—have talked—about adopting one. We—we get lonely sometimes—for a child."
Tommy was holding Frank by the collar now. He noticed that it was stifling hot and Frank was panting, that the sunlight on the trees was growing strange in colour, that the trees themselves stood motionless as if the leaves were made out of iron that could not stir, and when he glanced behind him, toward the barn, he saw over the hills a black cloud.
Then something in the road drew his attention. A man had ridden up on a horse and was dismounting and coming up the walk. He looked twice before he could make sure. It was Bob Kelley, rural policeman.