[Illustration:  An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his hair.]

“Uh-hu, Mr. Jimmy, you just wait till pa gets you!”

A prolonged and scornful “Aw!” was Jimmy’s reply to this welcome.  On the step of the back porch, his favorite little sister sat playing with the house-cat.  She toddled to Jimmy; he let her take his finger, and they went into the kitchen.

“Oh, Jimmy!—­where—­you—­been?” demanded the eldest sister.  “Mamma’s been asking for you all day.  I’d be ashamed if I was you.”

The boy did not deign to speak to Mrs. Jones, and kept his back to her when he could.  He did not answer his sister’s question.

“Got anything here fit to eat?” he asked, as he threw open the cupboard doors.  The insult to Mrs. Jones was not accidental.  Jimmy supposed that she had cooked the supper.  He put two or three plates of food on the table, and drew up a chair, sneering bumptiously, “What’s this?” as he dived into each dish.

[Illustration:  “Got anything here fit to eat?”]

His sister’s “Why, Jimmy!” and her warning frowns did not change his course.  Mrs. Jones went to the front of the house, diplomatically leaving all the doors open behind her, that Mrs. Sears might hear her son’s voice.  In a moment the boy caught the faint sound of his mother calling from the distant bedroom, “Jimmy, Jimmy, come here; I want you.”

The boy pretended not to hear.  She called his name again.  “Yes ’m,” he answered.  When she repeated her request, he filled his mouth with pie, and replied, “I’m a-eatin’ now.”  He slipped a piece of ice down the back of his adoring little sister’s dress, who sat near him.  When she wept noisily, he laughed under his breath, and spoke aloud to his sister at the dish-pan,—­

“What’d you want to take Annie’s doll away from her for?  Give it back, why don’t you?”

[Illustration:  “What’d you want to take Annie’s doll away from her for?”]

“Why—­Jimmy—­Sears!” retorted the girl.  Then lifting her voice, “Mamma, Jimmy’s put ice down—­” But the lad pressed the ice against the child’s back, pretending to be removing the source of the trouble, and the child’s lusty howls drowned the girl’s protest.  When he heard the bedroom door close to shield his mother from the turmoil, Jimmy knew that he had outwitted Mrs. Jones, so he quelled the disturbance he had caused.  When Mrs. Jones returned to the kitchen, the boy was sitting on the porch steps with his little sister, telling her about “raw head and bloody bones,” greatly to the child’s horror and delight.

Jimmy heard his elder sister inquire, “Did Mamma eat her supper?” He heard Mrs. Jones respond, “Not very much of it; but she will after a while, I guess.  She said to leave it in there.”

“Couldn’t she eat any of that nice chicken Mrs. Pennington sent?”

“No, nor Mrs. Carpenter’s lemon jelly.”