tryin' to git him to tell his pap's name and his, and
he won't do it, 'cause he says his pap comes and
steals him ever' time he finds out where he is."

The milk-faced boy drew a long, quavering
breath and gazed suspiciously round the high board
fence of the enclosure.

"He says his pap used to keep a liberty-stable
in Zeeny--in Ohio som'er's,--but he daresn't stay
round THERE no more, 'cause he broke up there, and
had to skedaddle er they'd clean him out! He says
he hain't got no mother, ner no brothers, ner no
sisters, ner no nothin'--on'y," the boy in the window
added, with a very dry and painful swallow, "he
says he hain't got nothin' on'y thist the clothes on
his back!"

"Yes, and I bet," broke in the milk-faced boy,
abruptly, with his thin lips compressed, and his
big eyes fixed on space--"yes, and I bet he kin lick
Billy Kinzey, ef his arm IS broke!"

At this juncture, some one inside coming to raise
the window, the boy at the broken pane leaped to
the ground, and, flocking at his heels, his frightened
comrades bobbed one by one over the horizon of the
high fence and were gone in an instant.

So it was the hero of this sketch came to be