"'The little soul! Let's so do,' Mis' Amanda Toplady says, hearty.
"It was Mis' Emmons that went to the door and called them, and I guess Insley, when he see her, must of wondered what made her face seem like that. He went on up town, and the little chap come trotting up the walk.
"When Chris come in Mis' Sykes's front parlour among all the women, there run round that little murmuring sound that a crowd of women uses to greet the coming in their midst of any child. And I s'pose it was a little more so than ever for Chris, that they hadn't all seen yet—'count of so few being out the night he come and 'count of his having been up to Proudfit House 'most ever since. Us in the back parlour went crowding in the front, and some come down to the hall door to be the nearer. Mis' Amanda Toplady, hunting in her deep pocket, this time for a lozenger, says fervent above the rest:—
"'The little soul.'
"And he did resemble one, standing there so shy and manly in his new little brown clothes.
"Mis' Emmons's eyes was bright, and I thought I see a kind of challenge in her way of drawing the child towards her.
"'Chris,' she says, 'tell them what you had in your paper bag when you came to the church the other night.'
"Chris remembered: Sugar rolls and cream-puffs and fruit-cake, he recites it grand. 'My supper,' he adds, no less grand. 'But that was 'cause I didn't have my dinner nor my breakfast,' he explains, so's we wouldn't think he'd had too much at once.
"'What was the matter with your foot?' Mis' Emmons goes on.
"Christopher had a little smile that just about won you—a sort of abashed little smile, that begun over by one side of his mouth, and when he was going to smile that way he always started in by turning away his head. He done this now; but we could all hear what he said. It was:—