Tommy, who somehow had forgotten his pain and thirst, felt embarrassed for a moment.  He never before had made that announcement without its awakening at least a little sensation, even if it were no more than a boast in return.

“This is a dull old town,” he finally said.  “Many jolly boys around?”

“A good many,” answered the boy.

“Do you get any time to play?  I suppose though, you don’t — you have to work most of the time,” added Tommy, encouragingly.

“I work a good deal,” said the boy.  “I get time to play, however.  I like it.”

“Which, the work or the play?”

“Both.”

“Well,” said Tommy after a pause, “do you ever have any trouble with the boys you play with?”

“No,” said the boy, “I don’t think I do.”

“Well, you must be a queer sort of a boy!  Now, there’s Bob Sykes, — perhaps you’ve noticed that my eye is hurt, and my face scratched some.  Well, we had a little difficulty just a few moments ago; he insulted me, and I won’t take an insult from any one.  And I told him to shut up his mouth, and he sassed me back, and called me names, and said I was stuck up and thought I was better than the other boys, and he’d show me that I wasn’t.  Of course, I wouldn’t stand that, so I’ve had a fight, — and it isn’t the first one either.”

“Yes,” said the boy, “I know that.  I feel very sorry for Bob.  He hasn’t any mother to go to, you know.  He had to wash the blood and dirt off his face as best he could at the town pump; and then wait around the streets until his father came from work.  It is pretty hard for a boy to have no place to lay his head.”

“Why, do you know Bob Sykes?” asked Tommy.

“Yes,” answered the boy, “I’ve been with him a good deal.”

“Queer now,” mused Tommy.  “I don’t remember of ever seeing you around.  But now tell me what you would have done if he had provoked you, and insulted you, too?”

“I would have forgiven him,” answered the boy.

“Well, I did.  There was one spell I just started in and forgave him every day for a week, that was seven times.”

“I would have forgiven him seventy times seven.”

“That is just what my mother always says.  Perhaps you know my mother?”

“She knows me, too,” replied the boy.

“That is odd.  I didn’t think she knew any of the boys Bob knows.”

“Bob does not know me,” replied the boy; “I know him.”

Just then Tommy’s attention was attracted by a flock of little brown birds passing over their heads.  One of the birds flew low and fluttered as if wounded, and fell in the dust near, where it lay beating its little wings, panting and dying.  The boy tenderly picked it up.

“Somebody’s hit him with a sling-shot,” said Tommy, carelessly.

The boy smoothed the bruised wing, and straightened the crushed and broken body.  The bird ceased fluttering.