was forgotten.

Squaring himself before his host, the boy said, aggressively, "I know
who _yer_ are. Yer are the Interpreter. I know 'cause yer ain't got no
legs."

"Yes," returned the old basket maker, still smiling, "I am the
Interpreter. At least," he continued, "that is what the people call
me." Then, as he regarded the general appearance of the children, and
noted particularly the tired face and pathetic eyes of the little girl,
his smile was lost in a look of brooding sorrow and his deep voice was
sad and gentle, as he added, "But some things I find very hard to
interpret."

The girl, with a shy smile, went a little nearer.

The boy, with his eyes fixed upon the covering that in spite of the
heat of the day hid the man in the wheel chair from his waist down,
said with the cruel insistency of childhood, "Ain't yer got no
legs--honest, now, ain't yer?"

The Interpreter laughed understandingly. Placing the unfinished basket
on a low table that held his tools and the material for his work within
reach of his hand, he threw aside the light shawl. "See!" he said.

For a moment the children gazed, breathlessly, at those shrunken and
twisted limbs that resembled the limbs of a strong man no more than the
empty, flapping sleeves of a scarecrow resemble the arms of a living
human body.