"Who was it?" demanded Pollyanna, more peremptorily.
"Dad." The boy's voice was sullen.
"Your—dad?" repeated Pollyanna, in amazement. "Why, how could he know Jamie?"
"He didn't. 'Twasn't about that Jamie. 'Twas about me." The boy still spoke sullenly, with his eyes turned away. Yet there was a curious softness in his voice that was always noticeable whenever he spoke of his father.
"You!"
"Yes. 'Twas just a little while before he died. We stopped 'most a week with a farmer. Dad helped about the hayin'—and I did, too, some. The farmer's wife was awful good to me, and pretty quick she was callin' me 'Jamie.' I don't know why, but she just did. And one day father heard her. He got awful mad—so mad that I remembered it always—what he said. He said 'Jamie' wasn't no sort of a name for a boy, and that no son of his should ever be called it. He said 'twas a sissy name, and he hated it. 'Seems so I never saw him so mad as he was that night. He wouldn't even stay to finish the work, but him and me took to the road again that night. I was kind of sorry, 'cause I liked her—the farmer's wife, I mean. She was good to me."
Pollyanna nodded, all sympathy and interest. It was not often that Jimmy said much of that mysterious past life of his, before she had known him.
"And what happened next?" she prompted. Pollyanna had, for the moment, forgotten all about the
