The dog rushes ahead, quite out of sight; the anxious villagers press
forward in hot pursuit. The situation grows more and more intense;
they round a little point of rocks, and there, under the shadow of a
great gray crag, they find--

"What do you suppose they found?"

"FI' CENTS!!" shouted Benny in a transport of excitement. "BET YER
THEY FOUND FI' CENTS!!"

You would imagine that such a preposterous idea could not find favor
in any sane community; but so altogether seductive a guess did this
appear to be, that a chorus of "Fi' cents!" "Fi' cents!" sounded on
every side; and when the tumult was hushed, the discovery of an
ordinary flesh and blood child fell like an anti-climax on a public
thoroughly in love with its own incongruities. Let the psychologist
explain Benny's mental processes; we prefer to leave them undisturbed
and unclassified.

If you have no children of your own, dear Person with a Story, go into
the highways and by-ways and gather together the little ones whose
mothers' lips are dumb; sealed by dull poverty, hard work, and
constant life in atmospheres where graceful fancies are blighted as
soon as they are born. There is no fireside, and no chimney corner in
those crowded tenements. There is no silver-haired grandsire full of
years and wisdom, with memory that runs back to the good old times
that are no more. There is no cheerful grandame with pocket full of
goodies and a store of dear old reminiscences all beginning with that
enchanting phrase, "When I was a little girl."