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Rh wants the gospel. That's what pa says, anyway; I didn’t ever see one.”

“Well, didn’t that make you happy—to help the poor little heathen children?”

“Oh, does it, Uncle Teddy? They never got a cent of it. One time I was good so long I got scared. I was afraid I’d never want to fly my kite on a roof again or go anywhere where I oughtn’t, or have any fun. I couldn’t see any use of going and saving my money to send out to the Objecks if it was going to make good boys of ’em. It was awful hard for me to have to be a good boy, and it must be worse for them ’cause they ain’t used to it. So when there wasn’t anybody upstairs I went and shook a lot of pennies out of my chimney and bought ever so much taffy and marbles and popcorn. Was that awful mean, Uncle Teddy?”

The question involved such complications that I hesitated. Before I could decide what to answer Billy continued:

“Ma said it was robbing the heathen, and didn’t I get it? I thought if it was robbing I’d have a cop after me.”

“What’s a ‘cop’?”

“That’s what the boys call a policeman, Uncle Teddy; and then I should be taken away and put in an awful black place underground, like Johnny Wilson when he broke Mrs. Perkins’s window. I was scared, I tell you. But I didn’t get anything worse than a whipping, and 232