Red-Robin | Page 7

and straggling ends of flaming red hair.
"Jimmie won't scold me. He'd want me to try to find Cynthia." Robin
smothered a sigh. "He wasn't home anyway."
"D'you live all alone? You and your Jimmie?"
"Oh, yes, only Aunt Milly's downstairs and Grandpa Jones is 'cross the
hall, so I'm never 'fraid. They're not my really truly aunt's and
grandfather's--I just call them that. And Jimmie leaves the light burning
anyway. What's your name? And are you very old? Are you a man like
Jimmie?"
Dale, warming under the adoration he saw on the small face, felt very
big and very manly. He returned the little squeeze that tugged on his
hand.
"Oh, I'm a big fellow," he answered.
"You look awful nice," the little girl pursued. "Just like one of my
make-believe Princes. I wish you lived with Jimmie and me. I wouldn't

mind Cynthia then."
"But the Princes never lived with the little girls in the stories, you
know," argued Dale, finding it a very pleasant and unusual sensation to
act the rôle of a Prince even to a very small girl. "You have to find me,
you see."
Miss Robin jumped with joy. "Oh, goody, goody! I'll always make
b'lieve you are a Prince and I'll find you and you must find me, too.
You will, won't you?"
"You just bet I will," promised Dale, easily. "Here's your street." He
stopped to study the house numbers. Suddenly a door flew open wide
and a bareheaded man plunged into the street, almost tumbling upon
them.
"Robin! Good gracious! I thought you were--stolen--lost--"
Robin, very calm, clasped him about his knee.
"I was lost, Jimmie. But this very big boy brought me home. He's a
Prince--I mean he's my make-believe Prince."
"But, Robin--" The man turned from the child to Dale.
"I found her way down by Sheridan Square. She was hunting for her
doll she'd left there."
"While I was walking with Mr. Tony this afternoon I played in the park
and I forgot Cynthia."
"Good Heavens--and you went way off there all by yourself to find the
thing?"
In her pride of Dale, Robin overlooked the slur on Cynthia.
"I went alone," she repeated, "but I came home with my Prince."
Gradually Robin's father was recovering from his shock. The muscles

of his face relaxed; he ran his fingers through his thick hair, red like the
child's, with a gesture of throwing off some horrible nightmare. To
Dale he looked very boyish--with a little of Robin's own cherubic
expression.
"Well, say, you gave me a fright, child. And you must promise not to
do it again. Why, I can't ever leave you alone unless you do."
He turned to Dale, who stood, lingering, loath to leave the little Robin
under the doubtful protection her Jimmie offered. "I'm no end grateful
to you, my boy. If there's anything I can do for you--" He slipped one
hand mechanically into his pocket.
"I don't want anything." Dale spoke curtly and stepped back. "It wasn't
any bother; it's a nice night to walk."
With a child's quick intuition Robin realized that her gallant Prince was
about to slip out of her sight. Her Jimmie had pulled his hand from his
pocket and was extending it to the boy. He was not even inviting him to
come in and smoke like he always invited Mr. Tony and Gerald and all
the others. But of course Princes wouldn't smoke, anyway.
She waited until her father had finished his thanks, then, stepping up to
Dale, she reached out two small arms and by holding on to Dale's, drew
herself up almost to the boy's chin. Upon it she pressed a shy, warm
kiss.
"Good-bye, Prince. You will hunt for me, won't you? Promise! Cross
your heart!"
Dale, flaming red, confused, promised that he would, then wheeled and
stalked off down the street. After he had rounded the corner he lifted
his arm and wiped his chin with the sleeve of his coat. Then he stuck
his hands deep in his pockets and whistled loudly. But after a moment,
at a recollection of sky-blue eyes underneath a sky-blue tam-o'shanter,
he chuckled softly. "A Prince! Gee, some Prince!" But his head
instinctively went higher at the honor thrust upon him.

When he returned from the store, Dale usually found his mother sitting
by the lamp crocheting. But tonight everything was different; scarcely
had he stopped at their landing before the little mother, quite
transformed, rushed to greet him and tell him the wonderful bit of good
fortune.
Before it his own adventure was forgotten.
"And it's only a beginning it is--it's the superintendent he'll be in no
time at all, at all," finished Mrs. Lynch.
"And we can move? And I can join the Boy Scouts? And go