She turned around and looked at him over her spectacles. "Well, I
s'pose I may's well tell you one time as another," she said
reluctantly. "Rindy came for him to-day. We talked it over and
thought, as long as there had to be a separation, it would be easier
for you both, and save a scene, if you wasn't here to see him go. He's
got a good home, and Rindy'll be kind to him."

Steven looked at her in bewilderment, then glanced around the cheerful
kitchen. His slate lay on a chair where Robin had been scribbling and
making pictures. The old cat that Robin had petted and played with
that very morning purred comfortably under the stove. The corncob
house he had built was still in the corner. Surely he could not be so
very far away.

He opened the stair door and crept slowly up the steps to their little
room. He could scarcely distinguish anything at first, in the dim
light of the winter evening, but he saw enough to know that the little
straw hat with the torn brim that he had worn in the summer time was
not hanging on its peg behind the door. He looked in the washstand
drawer, where his dresses were kept. It was empty. He opened the
closet door. The new copper-toed shoes, kept for best, were gone, but
hanging in one corner was the little checked gingham apron he had worn
that morning.

Steven took it down. There was the torn place by the pocket, and the
patch on the elbow. He kissed the ruffle that had been buttoned under
the dimpled chin, and the little sleeves that had clung around his
neck so closely that morning. Then, with it held tight in his arms, he
threw himself on the bed, sobbing over and over, "It's too cruel! It's
too cruel! They didn't even let me tell him good-by!"