"I fetched him along," said Scattergood. "I wisht you'd look him over."

The audience craned its neck, exclaiming, dropping tears. The heart of
Coldriver was well protected, it fancied, by an exterior of harshness
and suspicion, but Coldriver was wrong. Its heart lay near the surface,
easy of access, warm, tender, sympathetic. "This is him," said
Scattergood.

He turned his face to the child. "Sonny," he said, kindly, "you hain't
got no pa nor ma?" "No, sir," said the little fellow.

"And you live in one of them horspittles?"

"Yes, sir."

"It costs money?"

"Yes, sir."

"How do you git it, sonny? Tell the folks."

"Sister," said the child. "She's awful good to me. When she kin, she
stays whole days with me, but she can't stay much on account of havin'
to earn money to pay for me. It takes 'most all she earns.... She's had
to do kinds of work she don't like, on account of it earnin' more money
than nice jobs. We're savin' to have me cured, and then I'm goin' to go
to work and keep _her._ I got it all planned out while I was layin'
there."

"Is your sister a bad woman?"