Red-Robin | Page 6

back her graven smile.
Then: "I'm hungry," she declared, suddenly deciding that dumplings
were more important than anything else. "And can my Dolly sit in
Pop's seat?"
"That she can," cried the mother, going to her "mixin'." "And what a
gay supper it will be--with the new dolly and the pretty beads and the
dumplin's. Oh, Himself a foreman!"
CHAPTER II
A PRINCE
Promptly at nine o'clock, young Dale Lynch turned the key in the door
of "Tony Sebastino, Groceries" and started, whistling, homeward.

Three times a week, from the close of school until nine o'clock, he
worked in the store, snatching a dinner of bananas, or bread and cheese,
between customers. Because "Mom" had whispered that there were to
be "dumplin's" this night and that she would keep some warm for him,
and because the wind whipped chillingly through his thin clothing, he
broke into a run.
His homeward way led him past a bit of open triangle which in the
neighborhood was dignified by the name of park, a dreary place now,
dirty straw stacked about the fountain, dry leaves and papers cluttering
the brown earth and whipping against the iron palings of the fence.
Dale, still whistling, turned its corner and ran, full-tilt, upon a bit of
humanity clinging, like the paper and leaves, to the fence.
"Giminy Gee!" Dale jumped back in alarm. Then: "Did I scare you, kid?
Oh, say, what's the matter?" For the face that turned to his was red and
swollen with weeping. "Y'lost?" This was Dale's natural conclusion, for
the hour was late, and the child a very small one.
"I lost--my Cynthia."
"Your--what?"
"My--my Cynthia. She's my b-bestest doll. I forgot her." The voice
trailed off in a wail.
Dale, touched by her woe, looked about him. Certainly no Cynthia was
visible. By rapid questioning on his part he drew from her the story of
her desertion. She had played a nice game of running 'round and 'round
and counting the "things," waiting for Mr. Tony; Cynthia did not like to
run because it shook her eyes, so she had put her down on the edge of
the straw where the wind would not blow on her. And then Mr. Tony
had come and had told her to "hustle along" and she "had runned away
and for-g-got Cynthia!"
"Well, I guess she's somebody else's Cynthia now, kid. Things don't
stay long in the parks 'round here."

Dale seemed so very old and very wise that the tiny girl listened to his
verdict with blanching face. He knew, of course.
"Where d'you live?" demanded Dale. "Why, you're just a baby!
Anybody with you?"
The child pointed rather uncertainly to one of the intersecting streets.
"I come that way," she said, then, even while saying it, began to
wonder if that were the way she had come. The streets all looked so
much alike. She had run along the curb, so as to be as far away as
possible from the dark alley ways and the doors. And it had been a long
way.
Her lip quivered though she would not cry. After Cynthia's fate, just to
be lost herself did not matter.
"Well, don't you know where you live? What's the street? I'll take you
home."
"22 Patchin Place," lisped the child.
Dale hesitated a moment to make sure of his bearings. "Well, then,
come along. I know where that is. And you forget 'bout your Cynthia.
You've got another doll, haven't you? If you haven't, you just ask Santa
Claus for one. Why, say, kiddo, what's this? You lame?" For the little
girl skipped jerkily at his side.
"That's just the way I'm made," the child answered, quite indifferent to
the shocked note in the boy's voice. "I can walk and run, but I go
crooked."
"What's your name?"
"Robin Forsyth." She made it sound like "Wobbin Force."
"Oh, Wobbin Force. Funny name, isn't it? And what's your Ma and Pa
going to say to you for running off?"

Putting a small hand trustingly into the boy's big one, the child skipped
along at his side. "Oh, nothing," she answered, lost in an admiring
contemplation of her rescuer. "What's they, anyway?"
"A Ma? Don't you know what your mother is?"
Little Robin met his astonishment with a ripple of laughter. "Oh a
mother! I had a lovely, lovely mother once but she's gone away--to
Heaven. And is a Pa a Jimmie?"
"A--what?" Dale had never met such a strange child.
"'Cause Jimmie's my Parent. I call him Parent sometimes and
sometimes I call him Jimmie."
If his companion had not been so very small Dale might have suspected
an attempt at "kidding." He glanced sidewise and suspiciously at her
but all he saw was a cherub face framed in a tilted sky-blue
tam-o'shanter