Page:Quinby and Son (1925).pdf/16

 "What kind of cake?"

"Almond."

"Last time we had two pieces each. Think we'll get two pieces to-day?"

Herbert rose, leaned across the porch railing and peered through the curtained window. "One piece and a half, anyway," he said, and came back to his place. "Mrs. Busher's inside."

Bill Harrison sighed. A spider hung from a thread at one corner of the porch, and he fished through his pockets, found the stump of a pencil, and began to sketch the dangling insect on the porch floor. "She more than likes almond cake, doesn't she?"

"I don't know why you're always trying to draw bugs," Herbert complained.

A murmur of voices, a low laugh, came from the house.

"Pretty babies," said Mrs. Quinby with mock gravity in her voice, "always make me think of the time when people used to stop me on the street, and look inside the carriage at Herbie and tell me what a pretty baby he was."

A grin spread across Bill Harrison's face. "Herbie," he drawled, "they'd have a hard time proving that on you now."

Herbie shrugged his shoulders against the pillar. At fourteen his face ran mostly to freckles. His hair, thick and clustering, was honestly red, and his neck seemed to have stretched out a little