"No, the little fellow's scarcely a mite of trouble," Mrs. Dearborn
would say to the neighbors sometimes when they inquired. "Steven is
real handy about dressing him and taking care of him, so I just leave
it mostly to him."

Mrs. Dearborn was not a very observing woman or she would have seen
why he "was scarcely a mite of trouble." If there was never a crumb
left on the doorstep where Robin sat to eat his lunch, it was because
Big Brother's careful fingers had picked up every one. If she never
found any tracks of little bare feet on the freshly scrubbed kitchen
floor, it was because his watchful eyes had spied them first, and he
had wiped away every trace.

He had an instinctive feeling that if he would keep Robin with him he
must not let any one feel that he was a care or annoyance. So he never
relaxed his watchfulness in the daytime, and slept with one arm thrown
across him at night.

Sometimes, after supper, when it was too late to go outdoors again,
the restless little feet kicked thoughtlessly against the furniture,
or the meddlesome fingers made Mrs. Dearborn look at him warningly
over her spectacles and shake her head.

[Illustration]

Sometimes the shrill little voice, with its unceasing questions,
seemed to annoy the old farmer as he dozed over his weekly newspaper
beside the lamp. Then, if it was too early to go to bed, Steven would
coax him over in a corner to look at the book that Mrs. Estel had
given him, explaining each picture in a low voice that could not