Page:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu/124

Rh know the real rain surprised me, like something I'd forgotten, and a very sharp, cornery rock was poking into my back.

It was then that Greg said:

"Want—Simpson."

That frightened me more than anything almost, for Simpson was a sort of stuffed flannel duck-thing that he'd had when he was very little, and he had n't thought of it for years. None of us ever knew why he called it "Simpson," but he adored the thing and made it sleep beside him in the crib every night. But that was when he was three, and "Simpson" had been for ages on the top shelf where we keep the toys that we think we'll play with again sometime before we're really grown up. We never have done it yet, but there are certain ones that we could n't possibly give away, not even to the Deservingest poor children.

So when Greg said that, in a tired, far- 108