Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/96

 she and Joe put into his hands? So loving, so terribly sensitive. When from his own world he came into the outer world, became aware of other people, he was so vulnerable. In radiant delight, he was ready to droop at a glance. "I'm afraid he inherits the artistic temperament from me," Kate thought with sad complacence.

A darling little boy, but he worried her sometimes. He had hours of mimicking people, thinking he was funny. That was atrick he had picked up from Hoagland.

"Now, Jodie, that isn't funny; that's just tiresome!"

And Jodie would echo, mincingly, maddeningly:

"Now, Jodie, that isn't funny; that's just tiresome!"

"Mother's sorry she has such a silly little boy."

"Mother's sorry she has such a silly little boy."

Then he would go around the corner to play with Opal Mendoza, the little girl the Chestnut Street children weren't allowed to play with and couldn't keep away from.

"I simply can't keep him away!" Kate moaned to Mrs. Baylow and Mrs. Jackson.

"Don't I know it! Laddie acts as if he was bewitched!"

"So does Dorothy. She says Opal has life-sized paper dolls with crêpe-paper dresses, and Mrs. Mendoza gives them all pretzels to eat. But, goodness! that doesn't explain anything! I don't know what's