“I should think it was pretty late for butterflies,” said Eddy.  He straightened himself and looked very hard at the glass jar of molasses-balls on the shelf behind the clerk.

“There might be a stray one,” said William Price.  “It’s a warm day.”

“Shucks!” said Eddy.  “Say, how much are those a pound?”

The clerk glanced around at the jar of molasses-balls.  “Twenty-five cents,” replied he.

“Guess I’ll take a pound,” said Eddy.  “I ’ain’t got any money with me, but I’ll pay you the next time I come in.”

The old clerk’s common face turned suddenly grave, and acquired thereby a certain distinction.  He turned about, took off the cover of the glass jar, and gathered up a handful of the molasses-balls and put them in a little paper bag.  Then he came forth from behind the counter and approached the boy.  He thrust the paper bag into a little grasping hand, then he took hold of the small shoulders and looked down at him steadily.  The blue eyes in the ordinary face of an ordinary man, unfitted for any work in life except that of an underling, were full of affection and reproof.  Eddy looked into them, then he hitched uneasily.

“What you doing so for?” said he; then he looked into the eyes again and was still.

“It’s jest this,” said William Price.  “Here’s a little bag of them molasses-balls, I’ll give ’em to ye; but don’t you never, as long as you live, buy anything you ’ain’t either got the money to pay for in your fist, ready, or know jest where it’s comin’ from.  It’s stealin’, and it’s the wust kind of stealin’, ‘cause it ain’t out an’ out.  I had a boy once about your size.”

“Where’s he now?” asked Eddy, in a half-resentful, half-wondering fashion.

“He’s dead; died years ago of scarlet-fever, and I’d a good deal rather have it so, much as I thought of him—­as much as your father thinks of you—­than to have him grow up and steal and cheat folks.”

“Didn’t he ever take anything that didn’t belong to him?” asked Eddy.

“Never.  I guess he didn’t.  John wasn’t that kind of a boy.  I’d have trusted him with anythin’.”

“Then he must have gone to heaven, I suppose,” said Eddy.  He looked soberly into the old clerk’s eyes.  “Thank you for the molasses-balls,” he said.  “I meant to pay for ’em, but I don’t know just when I’d have the money, so I guess it’s better for you to give them to me.  Mr. Anderson won’t mind, will he?”

“No, he won’t, for I shall put fives cents into the cash-drawer for them,” replied the old clerk, with dignity.

“I wouldn’t want to have you take anything that Mr. Anderson wouldn’t like,” said Eddy.

“I shouldn’t,” replied the old clerk, going back to his place behind the counter, as a woman entered the store.

Eddy looked back as he went out, with a very sweet expression.  “The first five-cent piece I get I’ll pay you,” he said.  He had popped a molasses-ball into his mouth, and his utterance was somewhat impeded.  “I thank you very much, indeed,” he said, “and I’m sorry your boy died.”