Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/65

 necessity of explaining who he was—he, once the best-known boy in all Cowansburg. But Cowansburg, at that moment, seemed very far away.

"Lonely! What a funny name!" avowed Annie Eliza. "Was you called that because no one would ever come in an' play with you?"

"Huh?" snorted Lonely. "Not much, I guess!"

"Then how did you ever get such a funny name?"

"It ain't so funny, when you get used to it; it 's just a name—same as yours or anybody else's!"

"I s'pose so," soliloquized Annie Eliza. She was persistent, however.

"But were n't you lonely, or something, when they called you that?"

"Naw!" said the boy, in disgust.

Then he hunched a shoulder up and squinted a little—always an ominous sign to those who knew him.

"I was born twins, at first," he explained feelingly. "But the other one of us, he up an' died, an' left me all alone!"