McLean stared aghast.  He had no reply ready, and presently in a low voice he suggested:  “And after?”

“The Home people took me in, and I was there the full legal age and several years over.  For the most part we were a lot of little Irishmen together.  They could always find homes for the other children, but nobody would ever be wanting me on account of me arm.”

“Were they kind to you?” McLean regretted the question the minute it was asked.

“I don’t know,” answered Freckles.  The reply sounded so hopeless, even to his own ears, that he hastened to qualify it by adding:  “You see, it’s like this, sir.  Kindnesses that people are paid to lay off in job lots and that belong equally to several hundred others, ain’t going to be soaking into any one fellow so much.”

“Go on,” said McLean, nodding comprehendingly.

“There’s nothing worth the taking of your time to tell,” replied Freckles.  “The Home was in Chicago, and I was there all me life until three months ago.  When I was too old for the training they gave to the little children, they sent me to the closest ward school as long as the law would let them; but I was never like any of the other children, and they all knew it.  I’d to go and come like a prisoner, and be working around the Home early and late for me board and clothes.  I always wanted to learn mighty bad, but I was glad when that was over.

“Every few days, all me life, I’d to be called up, looked over, and refused a home and love, on account of me hand and ugly face; but it was all the home I’d ever known, and I didn’t seem to belong to any place else.

“Then a new superintendent was put in.  He wasn’t for being like any of the others, and he swore he’d weed me out the first thing he did.  He made a plan to send me down the State to a man he said he knew who needed a boy.  He wasn’t for remembering to tell that man that I was a hand short, and he knocked me down the minute he found I was the boy who had been sent him.  Between noon and that evening, he and his son close my age had me in pretty much the same shape in which I was found in the beginning, so I lay awake that night and ran away.  I’d like to have squared me account with that boy before I left, but I didn’t dare for fear of waking the old man, and I knew I couldn’t handle the two of them; but I’m hoping to meet him alone some day before I die.”

McLean tugged at his mustache to hide the smile on his lips, but he liked the boy all the better for this confession.

“I didn’t even have to steal clothes to get rid of starting in me Home ones,” Freckles continued, “for they had already taken all me clean, neat things for the boy and put me into his rags, and that went almost as sore as the beatings, for where I was we were always kept tidy and sweet-smelling, anyway.  I hustled clear into this State before I learned that man couldn’t have kept me if he’d wanted to.  When I thought I was good and away from him, I commenced hunting work, but it is with everybody else just as it is with you, sir.  Big, strong, whole men are the only ones for being wanted.”