Page:Daskam Bacon--Whom the gods destroy.djvu/190

 of Nature Lessons for Little Learners, displayed tempting rows of bound St. Nicholas—but to no purpose.

"Where's Jimmy?" they demanded stubbornly.

"What on earth do they want of him?" she asked of her assistant one day. "That stupid Meadows child—is she going to ask his opinion of the Dotty Dimple Books?"

"Not at all," Miss Mather replied tranquilly. "But he always gets her a Mary J. Holmes novel, and I stamp it and let it go. You always argue with her about it, and ask her if she wouldn't prefer something else—which she never would."

Little by little he grew to wait on the children as a matter of course. He was even allowed to keep the novels desired by the Meadows child in the juvenile shelf, where he insisted they belonged.

"Only the girls in Number Seven want 'em," he explained, when his superior complained of his audacity in removing them from adult fiction.

And so the little girl who had reached that