to Tom, turned away. He meant to go to the engineer's office
before his return to town, now that his affairs with Grogan were
settled. As he swung back the door in the board fence, he
stumbled over a mere scrap of humanity carrying a dinner-pail.
The mite was peering through the crack and calling to Cully at the
horse-trough. He proved to be a boy of perhaps seven or eight
years of age, but with the face of an old man--pinched, weary, and
scarred all over with suffering and pain. He wore a white
tennis-cap pulled over his eyes, and a short gray jacket that
reached to his waist. Under one arm was a wooden crutch. His
left leg was bent at the knee, and swung clear when he jerked his
little body along the ground. The other, though unhurt, was thin
and bony, the yarn stocking wrinkling over the shrunken calf.

Beside him stood a big billy-goat, harnessed to a two-wheeled cart
made of a soap-box.

As Babcock stepped aside to let the boy pass he heard Cully
shouting in answer to the little cripple's cries. "Cheese it,
Patsy. Here's Pete Lathers comin' down de yard. Look out fer
Stumpy. He'll have his dog on him."

Patsy laid down the pail and crept through the door again, drawing
the crutch after him. The yardmaster passed with a bulldog at his
heels, and touching his hat to the contractor, turned the corner
of the coal-shed.

"What is your name?" said Babcock gently. A cripple always
appealed to him, especially a child.