more than eight or
nine years old, crying bitterly. "Come here, sonny, an' tell me. what
the matter is, for it
looks as' if you an' I were in the same scrape:"

"They're takin' me away from mamma an' papa, an' I'll just jump
overboard," was sonny's
answer.

"Oh, don't get like that," said Joe, soothingly,as he placed the
valises carefully in one corner, and took the child by the hand to
reassure him. "They ar'n't to blame, 'cause they told everybody to go
on shore' that wanted to, an' we didn't go."

" I couldn't," sobbed the boy, "he held me, an' when I cried he struck
me in the face."

"Who did?"

"The man that made me come here with him. Mamma let me go out in the
street to play if I wouldn't go away from the block; but that man came
up an' asked me if I did not want a real live pony, an' I did, an' I
went with him to get it"

"An' you forgot what you promised your mother," said Joe, sagely.

" Yes, 'cause he said it was only a little ways off; but when we'd
walked two blocks, I wanted to go home, 'and he told me he'd cut my
throat wide open if I said anything; and then we come here."