To his very considerable surprise, Lem did not find residing with the Shuders a painful experience. Rosa, for all her strange ways of doing things and her incomprehensible objection to chickens killed in any but a certain way, was a better cook than Saint Harvey, and knew how to prepare things that a boy's appetite found delicious. Lem had to sleep in the lean-to, on an old iron cot set among the piles of junk, but it was summer and hot and he enjoyed that.

Shuder made him work, but it was work that Lem liked; the kind he had always done for his father, and he had only about half as much of it to do as his father had made him do. He enjoyed helping with the horse, harnessing and unharnessing it. There was only one thing Lem refused to do—he would not go out of the junkyard. For a week he kept under close cover. Then, one night, he stole away, and, keeping in the alley shadows, made his way to Miss Susan's back gate. He did not risk the rusty hinges creaking, but climbed the fence, and dodged to the shadow of the house.

Miss Susan was in the kitchen. Lem went around the house. On the porch Lorna sat, on one of the steps as usual, and Henrietta and Johnnie Alberson had chairs. It was Henrietta Lem wanted. He seated himself under the drooping spirea bushes that edged the porch, and waited. Presently Lorna went up.

Lem heard a chair move on the porch and hoped Johnnie Alberson was going, but he was to have no such luck. He heard Johnnie speak.

“Henrietta,” he said, “when are we going to be married?”

“Never,” Henrietta answered, but not as if the question had offended her.

“But I'm not going to take that for an answer,” he said. “I can't. It would make a liar of me. I told Miss Susan I was going to marry you, and she rather depends on it, poor soul.”

“I told you, Johnnie, I have a husband. It is ridiculous, sinful, for you to talk to me of marrying.”

“I see! Which husband do you mean, Etta? The Colorado one who was and then was n't?”

“Oh! please don't!” Henrietta begged. “I can't tell you. Not now. Not yet. Perhaps never. I—”

“If you don't mean the Colorado myth,” said Johnnie, quite unabashed, “you must mean Freeman. Do you?”

There was a momentary silence.

“Yes, I do mean Freeman,” Henrietta said then. “How did you know he was my husband?”

“Well, you see,” said Johnnie slowly but wickedly, “he sold you to me. The night of the row about Lem stealing Miss Susan's money, Freeman came to my room after you had taken Lem, and we had a frank talk—quite a frank talk. So I bought you.”

“John!”

“Yes; I did. You cost me three hundred dollars, too—a lot of money to pay for a wife these days. You cost me two hundred—the money he stole from me—and another hundred in cold cash that I gave him to get away on. And my very best pants. That's three hundred dollars plus. So that settles that.”

“He is still my husband.”

“But not for long. He threw in a promise to that effect. I made him. He's getting a divorce now.”

“But he can't. I've always been more than faithful.”

“Yes, he can. You stole his trousers. That's grounds for the strongest kind of divorce. That's cruelty de luxe. So that's settled. When are you going to marry me?”

Henrietta, in spite of herself, laughed, but was serious again instantly.

“Never, John,” she said. “I'm not going to do any more marrying. I'm going to do penance for the marrying I have done in the past. If what you say is true and Freeman frees me, I—”

“What?”

“I want to take that poor Lem boy and make a good man of him. I want to do in Lem what I undid in Freeman. I want that to be my penance.” Johnnie laughed, and arose.

“All right! We'll leave it that way to-night. Good-night, Henrietta. You've some penance ahead of you, if I know that boy! Good-night.” Henrietta sat thinking after Johnnie was gone. She had many things she wished to let drift through her mind, trying each as it came up.

Johnnie Alberson first of all. If Freeman did get a divorce—

“Say!”

Henrietta, although seldom nervous, was startled by this voice coming from the bushes.

“Who is that?” she asked, her heart standing still for a moment. Her first thought was that it was Freeman returned.

“It's Lem,” the boy whispered. “Is he gone? Can I come out?”

“Oh, Lem! You did frighten me! Yes, come here. Where have you been? You poor child—”

“I ain't been anywhere,” Lem said. “I'm to Shuder's—to his junkyard. I'm junkin' for him an' he's keepin' me.”

“Shuder is? Who is Shuder?”

Lem came and stood by her side.

“He's the Jew. He's the one that pop could n't abide. He's all right, though, Shuder is. Say—”

“Yes?”

“You know my pop—well, he went away. So I went. But he was n't there. He said he'd send word to me when he was somewhere else—he said he'd send it here to Aunt Susan's house. But he did n't, did he?”

“No; I'm quite sure he has not.”

“Well, I guess he don't want me, anyhow,” said Lem. “I guess that's what's the matter. Only—”

“Yes, Lem?”

“If he does send word you'll let me know, won't you? Because I'll be down to Shuder's. You will, won't you? Only don't let that old thief aunt know where I am, will you? Because she'd jail me, darn her! She'd do that in a minute.”

“Lem,” said Henrietta, “would you like to be my boy?”

“Sure! I'd like it if I was. Only I ain't.”

“But if I could have you? You would like to be my boy, would n't you? And live with me? Not in this house; some other house.”

“What you going to do; buy me off of Aunt Susan?”

Henrietta laughed ruefully. If it came to that she was herself in pawn to Miss Sue.

“'Cause she's got first rights to me,” Lem said. “Unless pop gets me back from her. Say—”

“What, Lem?”

“I guess maybe pop ain't goin' to try very hard to get me back. I guess maybe he don't want to bother about it. I guess, if the Jews have got the upper hand of the junk business everywhere, pop'll go into the saint business somewhere again. So he won't want me then. So I guess, if he don't send me word pretty soon, I 'll go somewhere else. You know—where there ain't no old aunt that wants to jail me.”

“You mean run away, Lem?”

“Yes. I can get a job, I guess, junking. I don't mind Jews. They cook pretty good. They don't make you wash the dishes, anyway.” Henrietta put her arm around the boy, but he did not like it and squirmed, and she released him.

“How much does your father owe Miss Susan?” she asked.

“I don't know. A lot, I guess. Only he paid her some. He owes her what's left of what he owed her. Lots of money, I guess.”

“A hundred? Two hundred?”

“I guess so. I don't know.”

“Well, no matter. I'll let you know if any word comes from your father. But, promise me this, Lem—you won't run away until you let me know. I won't tell. Will you promise that?”

“Yes.”

“And come to me any time you want to. If you get into trouble, come to me. Any night or any day. I'll always sit here awhile after the others go. You'll do that—come to me if you are in trouble?”

“Yes.”

“Then you'd better go. It's very late.”

“All right.”

The boy dropped over the edge of the porch. For a minute or two longer Henrietta sat; then she went in.