Don’t shorten Danny too early, Shandy.  Awful easy for babies to ketch cold this weather.

Of all the loitering curious men and women at doors and windows and in the street, Johnnie was the only one who dared speak to her to-day.  Mrs. Larabee was dressed in the overalls and jersey that simplified both the dressing and the labor of busy Monday mornings; her sleek black hair arranged fashionably in a “turban swirl.”  She ran out to the cart with a little cry of welcome, a smile on her thin, brown face that well concealed the trepidation this unheard-of circumstance caused her.  “Lord, make me say the right thing!” prayed Johnnie, fervently.  Mrs. Waters saw her coming, stopped the big horse, and sat waiting.  Her eyes were wild with a sort of savage terror, and she was trembling violently.

“Well, how do, Shandon?” said Mrs. Larabee, cheerfully.  Then her eyes fell on the child, and she gave a dramatic start.  “Never you tell me this is Danny!” said she, sure of her ground now.  “Well, you—­old—­buster—­you!  He’s immense, ain’t he, Shandon?”

“Isn’t he?” stammered Shandon, nervously.

“He’s about the biggest feller for nine months I ever saw,” said Mrs. Larabee, generously.  “He could eat Thelma for breakfast!”

“Johnnie—­and he ain’t quite seven yet!” protested Shandon, eagerly.

Mrs. Larabee gave her an astonished look, puckered up her forehead, nodded profoundly.

“That’s right,” she said.  Then she dragged the wriggling small body from Shandon’s lap and held the wondering, soft little face against her own.

“You come to Aunt Johnnie a minute,” said she, “you fat old muggins!  Look at him, Shandon.  He knows I’m strange.  Yes, ’course you do!  He wants to go back to you, Shandy.  Well, what do you know about that?  Say, dearie,” continued Mrs. Larabee, in a lower tone, “you’ve got a terrible handsome boy, and what’s more, he’s Dan’s image.”

Mrs. Waters gathered the child close to her heart.  “He’s awful like Dan when he smiles,” said she, simply.  And for the first time their eyes met.  “Say, thank you, for the redishes and the custard pie and that cheese, Johnnie,” said Shandon, awkwardly, but her eyes thanked this one friend for much more.

“Aw, shucks!” said Johnnie, gently, as she dislodged a drying clod of mud from the buggy robe.  There was a moment’s constrained silence, then Shandon said suddenly: 

“Johnnie, what d’you mean by ‘shortening’ him?”

“Puttin’ him in short clothes, dearie.  Thelma’s been short since Gran’ma Larabee come down at Christmas,” explained the other, briskly.

“I never knew about that,” said Mrs. Waters, humbly.  “Danny’s the first little kid I ever touched.  Lizzie Tom tells me what the Indians do, and for the rest I just watch him.  I toast his feet good at the fire every night, becuz Dan said his mother useter toast his; and whenever the sun comes out, I take his clothes off and leave him sprawl in it, but I guess I miss a good deal.”  She finished with a wistful, half-questioning inflection, and Mrs. Larabee did not fail her.