"Goin’ to take it home?" the man asked curiously.
"No, sir. I’m just going to keep it a little while," the youngster replied, looking manfully upward as he spoke, a little gulp bespeaking the final doom of the morsel he had taken. "You don’t mind, sir?" he added respectfully.
"Me mind! What would I mind for? You’re quite right, my boy—it’s a mighty good thing when a fellow finds out as young as you are that he can’t eat his cake and have it too; it takes most of us a lifetime to learn that. How old are you, Harvey—isn’t that your name?"
"Yes, sir. I’m most fourteen," the boy answered, stooping again to resume his work.
"Do you go to school?" the man inquired presently.
"Mostly in the winter, sir; not very much in the summer. But I do all I can. You see, I have to help my mother in the store when she needs me. But I’m going to try the entrance next summer," he added quickly, the light of ambition on his face.
"Where is your mother’s store?" asked Mr. Borland.
"It’s that little store on George Street, next to the Chinese laundry. It has a red door—and there’s a candy monkey in the window," he hastened to add, this last identification proffered with much enthusiasm.
A considerable silence followed, broken only by the rattling potatoes as they fell. "Mr. Borland, could you give me work in your factory?" the boy inquired suddenly, not pausing for an instant in his work.
"In the factory!" echoed Mr. Borland. "I thought you were going to school."
"I could work after four," replied the boy. "There’s two hours left."
Mr. Borland gazed thoughtfully for a moment. "’Twouldn’t leave you much time to play," he said, smiling down at Harvey.
"I don’t need an awful lot of play," the boy returned gravely; "I never got very much used to it. Besides, I’ve got a lot of games when I’m delivering little parcels for mother—games that I made up myself. Sometimes I play I’m going round calling soldiers out because there’s going to be a war—and sometimes I play I’m Death," he added solemnly.
"Play you’re Death!" cried the startled man. "What on earth do you mean by that? I thought no one ever played that game but once," he concluded, as much to himself as to the boy.
"Oh, it’s this way, you see—it’s one of the headlines in the copy-book that pale Death knocks with—with—impartial steps at the big houses and the little cottages—something like that, anyhow. And it’s a good deal the same with me," the boy responded gravely, looking up a moment as he spoke. "It’s a real interesting game when you understand it. Of course I’m not very pale," he continued slowly, "but I can feel pretty pale when I want to," he concluded, smiling at the fancy.