“Well!” she breathed explosively, staring at Barbara. Then she rustled toward the front door, her ample draperies filling the narrow twilight passage with a harsh, swishing sound.
“You better not show your face here again!” she said in a low, fierce voice, as she held the door wide for Barbara to pass out.
JIMMY PRESTON sat curled up on one foot by the table in Peg Morrison’s loft. His yellow hair was damp and towsled, for he had run bare-headed through the rain, bearing his precious book of “Vallable Information” tucked under his blouse.
“I didn’t bring my red ink,” he explained breathlessly to Peg, “‘cause I was ’fraid I’d spill it. I fought I could borrow some of yours.”
“You can, an’ welcome, son,” agreed Peg, “but remember that’ll give me an option on yours. Them that borrows ought to be willin’ to lend. They ain’t though, as a gen’ral thing. Borrowers is spenders, and lenders is savers, as a rule.”
“I’ll lend you my whole bottle of red ink an’ I’ll lend you my pen, too,” said Jimmy magnificently.
The little boy spread his book open on the table for Mr. Morrison’s inspection. “You see I’ve begun it already,” he said with pride.
“Le’ me see; what you got here?” and Peg traced the first wavering line with a horny forefinger.
“That’s how not to lose a letter,” said Jimmy proudly. “Barb’ra says sometimes letters are ’portant, an’ you don’t want to lose ’em.”
“‘Lev letters in the posoffis. They wil be saf ther,’” read Peg slowly. He paused and screwed his mouth in a noiseless whistle.
“Don’t you think that’s a vallable inf’mation?” demanded Jimmy anxiously. “If I hadn’t taken that letter and put it in my pocket, I shouldn’t have lost it. Barb’ra could have got it herself, and maybe it was ’portant. You can’t tell ’thout you read a letter whether it’s ’portant or not; an’ you can’t read a letter when it’s lost.”
“So you lost a letter ’dressed to Barb’ry, did you? H’m! Where’d you lose it?”
“If I knew, I’d go an’ find it,” said Jimmy soberly. “I put it in my pocket, an’ it was blue, an’ it was f’om out west. Barb’ra doesn’t know who it was f’om. But she’d like to know.”
“H’m!” repeated Peg. “You’d ought to carried it all the way right in your han’, where you c’d see it. Pockets are kind o’ dangerous when it comes to letters. I know a whole row o’ little boys ’at ain’t alive at all, ’count o’ a letter bein’ lost. They never was born,” he added by way of explanation.