of Elsie. She is always wanting to do everything that he does, so he
had no trouble in persuading her to help him carry out his plans.

"Put on the oldest, raggedest clothes you can find," he said to her,
"and tie an old handkerchief over your head so't you'll look as
beggary as possible. I'll tear some more holes in the old overalls
that I played in last summer, and pull part of the brim off my straw
hat. We'll take the music-box out of the hall, and put it in my little
red wheelbarrow, and you and me and Dago will start off through the
streets like the grind-organ man did yesterday, I planned it all last
night while everybody in the house was sound asleep. We'll sing when
the music-box plays songs, and you and Dago can dance when it plays
waltzes. I'll give you part of the money that we get to buy you the
prettiest doll in town. I'll take the rest and go off to the place
that I'm thinking about."

He wouldn't tell her where the place was, although she begged him with
tears in her eyes. "Some place where they're not cruel to little boys
and monkeys," was all he would tell her. "Where they don't ever whip
them, and where they don't mind 'em getting into mischief once in
awhile."

An hour later everything was ready for the start. Except for the
daintily embroidered ruffles of her white linen underskirt, that would
show below her old gingham dress, little Elsie might have been taken
for the sorriest beggar in town. The dress was faded and outgrown. The
little shawl she had pinned over her shoulders had one corner burned
out of it, and the edges of the hole were scorched and jagged. A
faded silk muffler that she had used in her doll-cradle was drawn
tightly over her tousled curls, and tied under her chin.