in the bottom part of that cupboard near the kitchen door you will find
a big jar and--"

But Bobby and Maggie had disappeared.

The children had found the jar in the cupboard and, with their hands
and their mouths filled with cookies, were gazing at each other in
unbelieving wonder when the sound of a step on the bare floor of the
kitchen startled them. One look through the open doorway and they fled
with headlong haste back to the porch, where they unhesitatingly sought
refuge behind their friend ha the wheel chair.

The object of their fears appeared a short moment behind them.

"Oh," said the Interpreter, reaching out to draw little Maggie within
the protecting circle of his arm, "it is Billy Rand. You don't need to
fear Billy."

The man who stood looking kindly down upon them was fully as tall and
heavy as the Interpreter had been in those years before the accident
that condemned him to his chair. But Billy Rand lacked the commanding
presence that had once so distinguished his older friend and guardian.
His age was somewhere between twenty and thirty; but his face was still
the face of an overgrown and rather slow-witted child.

Raising his hands, Billy Rand talked to the Interpreter in the sign
language of the deaf and dumb. The Interpreter replied in the same
manner and, with a smiling nod to the children, Billy returned to the
garden in the rear of the house.