Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/162

152 young college chaps; and if we had behaved wisely at college, we should n't be here to-day, as you evidently know. But we are going to study hard with the parson, and go back all right in the spring. And about this little girl, I am entirely in earnest, in wishing to take care of her. Parson Allen will advise me as to the best way of doing it. In the meantime, perhaps your wife will be so kind as to get some clothes for her; the poor little thing is very ragged. Will this be enough, do you think, to get what she needs at present?" and Jim quietly put a hundred dollar bill in Mr. Bunker's hands. Its effect was ludicrous. Not very often had Caleb Bunker even handled a hundred dollar bill, and the idea of such a sum being spent at once on the clothing of a child stunned him. He fingered the bill helplessly for a second or two, saying "Wall—wall, reelly—naow—Mr.—I beg yer pardon, sir,—don'no 's I heered yer name yit."

"Ordway," interrupted Jim. "My name is Ordway."

"Wall, Mr. Ordway, reelly—reelly—I 'll speak to Mis' Bunker;" and the bewildered Caleb disappeared, totally forgetting in his astonishment at Jim's munificence, that the dead man still lay uncared for on the office floor.

"Will," said Jim, "you go in there, and tell those men I 've taken the child. I don't want them coming near her. And if there 's any trouble about burying that brute, I 'll just pay for it. I