Bunker children, of Aunt Jo's great Dane. "Can't we go down and see
Alexis?"

"And see Sam again," said Margy. "Me and Mun Bun found him, you know."

It seemed to the little girl as though the colored boy had been quite
taken away from her and from Mun Bun. They had what Mother Bunker
laughingly called "prior rights" in Sam.

"Well, if he is a handy boy like that," said Aunt Jo, referring to the
colored boy, "and can fix the furnace, we shall just have to keep him
until William is well again. Has he finished his dinner, Annie?"

"Not yet, Ma'am. And indeed he was hungry. He ate like a wolf. But when
he heard about us all being beat by that furnace, down he went. There!
He's shaking the grate now. You can hear him. He said the ashes had to
be taken out from under the grate or the fire never would burn. Yes'm."

"Well, then," said Mother Bunker, "you children will have to wait to
see Sam--and Alexis--until he has finished eating."

"Annie," said Aunt Jo quickly, before the girl could go, "how does
Alexis act toward this boy?"

"Oh, Ma'am! Alexis just snuffed of him, and then put his head in his
lap. Alexis says he's all right. And for a black person," added the
parlormaid, "I do think the boy's all right, Ma'am."

She went out and Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker laughed. The youngsters were
suddenly excited at that moment by the stopping of a taxicab at the