That was Achilles' mother, and none of us had ever met her. We went in, real interested. And there in the middle of the floor sat Mis' Poulaki looking over the basket of cotton rags that the Red Cross had sent down by Achilles to old Mis' Herman.
"Oh," says little Mis' Poulaki, "you sent me such grand clothes for my rags. Thank you—thank you!"
She had tears in her eyes, and there wasn't one of us would tell her Achilles had just plain stole them for her.
"It is everything," she said to us in her broken talk. "Achilles, he had each week two dollar from Mr. Sykes. But it is not enough. I have hard time. Hard."
Over the lamp shelf I saw, just then, the picture of a big, handsome man; and out of being kind of embarrassed, I asked who he was.
"Oh," says Mis' Poulaki, "he's Achilles' grandfather—the father of my boy's father. He was officer of the Greek gover'ment," she added, proud. "He taught my boy a piece to speak—something all the Greek boys learn."
I told her I'd heard about that piece; and then we asked for the Greek flag, and Mis' Poulaki got it for us, but she said:
"Would you leave Achilles carry it for you? He like that."
We said "yes," and got out as soon as possible—it seemed so sad, love of a country and stealing all mixed up promiscuous in one little boy.
Out by the car there was a whole band of little folks hanging round examining it. They were all going to be in the drill at the entertainment that night, and they all came running to Ruth that had trained them.