“See little sister’s hands.  Oh, what pretty hands!” Jimmy had reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by the child’s big-eyed astonishment.  Mrs. Jones continued,—­

“Weenty teenty little feets!  See little sister’s toeses.  What little bitsey toeses.  Baby touch little sister’s toeses.”

Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene came to him after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was to dupe the child into an affection for her inevitable enemy.

“Does baby love little sister?” continued the voice.  “Love nice, pretty little sister!  Sweet little sister!  Zhere!  Zhere!  Zhat’s right; love little sister!” As he toyed with a wisp of hay, Jimmy Sears’s blood froze in his veins at the recollection that his own mother had lent her countenance to this baseness.  He knew, and he knew that his mother knew, that the baby would take all the care due to his toddling sister.  He saw, from the elevation of the hay-cock on which he and the little one sat, that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner while she smiled.  It seemed deliberately cruel.  A lump of pity for the child filled his throat.  Still, in his heart, he forgave his mother for her part in the duplicity.  He did not feel for her the contempt he felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew that Henry Sears was actually proud of the family’s ignominy.  Jimmy blushed at the picture in his mind of his father strutting around town, with his vest pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs in the armpits, bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame.  Jimmy felt that secretly his mother did not consider the baby’s arrival an occasion for vainglory.  He felt that his mother was merely putting a good face upon the misfortune.  These reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.

[Illustration:  His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame.]

At the end thereof a calamitous fate took him up and made him its toy.  Tragedy is the everlasting piling up of little things.  So Jimmy Sears could not know that an evil destiny had come to guide his steps when he started townward, for it came so gently.  To meet Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins and Abe Carpenter coming out of the Pennington yard was not such a dreadful thing.  Jimmy had met them a score of times before at that particular gate, with no serious consequences.  It was not in the least ominous that the four boys started for the Creek of the Willows, for Jimmy had gone to the Creek times without number in that very company.  It did not augur evil for Jimmy Sears that the lot fell to him to go forth and forage a chicken, for the great corn feast of the Black Feet, a savage tribe of four warriors, among whom Jimmy was known as the “Bald Eagle.”  Perhaps there were signs and warnings in all these things; and then, on the other hand, perhaps Jimmy Sears was so intent upon escaping from the shadow that lowered