Joan met Tommy in the Juvenile Court. She had hesitated outside the big double doors that Saturday morning, listening to the low hum of voices. It was distressing how shy she was at times. She must get over it, if she were to be a real reporter. Talking to people didn’t bother her, but walking into that room full of strange, staring people did.

However, Judge Grayson merely turned his head for a second and Mrs. Hollis, the matron of the Detention Home, flashed her a smile of recognition as she stole in, tiptoeing over the creaky boards. Tim was in the back of the room, of course. The sight of reporters up in front sometimes worried the timid mothers who had come to plead for their wayward sons. “Oh, all this ain’t going to be in the papers, is it?” they would wail to the judge.

Joan disregarded her brother’s frown, and slipping into the seat next to him, whispered her message. She had been sent to tell him to come back to the Journal—a story had broken and he was needed. She had happened to be over there, and had volunteered to go for him, after the editor had looked around for the red-headed office boy and found him missing as usual, when wanted. Joan was glad she happened to have on a fresh middy.

Tim hadn’t been sent to “cover” the Juvenile Court, for the Journal had its own court reporter, but Editor Nixon had wanted to see what Tim could do in the feature-story line. Miss Betty, who sometimes attended court, was busy with brides this Saturday morning and couldn’t be spared.

Now he shoved his note paper into his pocket and slipped out of the court room, at Joan’s whisper. He seemed a bit provoked at being called away. The half-dozen young boys who were up before Judge Grayson for some deviltry or other, eyed him as he went out. Joan herself, now that she had braved the ordeal of entering the room while the court was in session, decided to stay awhile, and that’s how she met Tommy! Court was always interesting. She hoped that none of these cases would be the kind when every one under sixteen was asked to leave.

She knew all the officials in the Juvenile Court. It was held in a room in the county courthouse. Juvenile Court was an informal proceeding, with Judge Grayson talking more like a father than a judge.

It wasn’t the usual playing hooky from school case that the judge was taking up now. It wasn’t a boy at all, but a young mother, hugging a chubby little boy. He wore blue overalls and looked about two years old. The morning sun slanting in through the long windows made his curls as yellow as the Journal copy paper.

“I didn’t think Tommy would cry so long and hard, Judge! He’s not really a baby,” the young mother was saying. “Or I never would have left him alone in the room. But I had to go to work to earn some money.”

Judge Grayson’s tired-looking face was kind but stern. “Don’t you know there’s a Day Nursery on Grove Street for just such mothers as you?”

The young woman nodded. “I did take him over there when I first came to Plainfield two weeks ago and got this job at Davis’. But the lady there said the nursery was full—the babies were taking naps two and three in a crib, and she couldn’t possibly take Tommy. I couldn’t take him to work with me, and I didn’t dare ask the landlady to keep him so I left him alone.”

Joan knew where the Day Nursery was—just the front room in Mrs. Barnes’ own home. She and Amy had visited it when it first opened with two babies, not long ago—and now it was filled to overflowing.

“If you have no one to care for the boy,” said Judge Grayson in his slow, even tones, “I’m afraid he will have to go to the Home till there is room in the Day Nursery.”

Tommy’s mother raised eyes dark with fright. “Oh, don’t take him away, Judge.” She hugged the little fellow harder than ever.

“I’ll keep him till I find some family to board him by the day,” spoke up Mrs. Hollis, briskly. “But what Plainfield needs is a bigger Day Nursery.”

The next case was called. A big boy of sixteen was up for petty thieving. He was sent to “Boyville,” the truant school, and then the court adjourned for lunch.

Joan could not get the thought of the too full Day Nursery out of her mind, and of poor Tommy locked in a furnished room and howling for his mother while she was out at work. Maybe Mother would keep Tommy till there was a vacancy at the Day Nursery. That would be better than having him at the Detention Home with Mrs. Hollis. It would be fun, too. On the way out, she edged over toward Mrs. Hollis and spoke to her about it. Tommy gave her a wobbly smile.

At lunch, Joan was too absorbed in the problem of Tommy to take her usual interest in Tim’s account of the morning. He had been sent to write up a butcher shop that had been flooded from a broken water main. That was what the story had been. “Nothing at the Juvenile Court, either,” he grumbled.

“Oh, yes, there was,” she corrected, as she spread her bread with peanut butter to make a sandwich. Lunch in summer was always a picnicky meal. “That part about the Day Nursery ought to make a dandy feature.”

“Who’s interested in babies?” Tim always took her suggestions doubtfully. Besides he seemed to be getting all the baby assignments lately.

“Why, everybody! Except you, maybe. Everybody’s been a baby, you see,” she told him.

“Well, I’d like to hand in something from the Court so Nixon will send me again, for listening to cases isn’t a bad way to spend a morning.”

After Tim had hurried off, Joan approached her mother. “Couldn’t we take Tommy by the day? I asked Mrs. Hollis and she says it’d be much better for him to be here with us, and she says the mother’s willing to pay something for his care.”

Mrs. Martin considered. “Well, if you want to,” she decided. “It’s the lesser of two evils, I guess. Maybe having Tommy here will keep you from running over to the Journal so much. But you and Amy will have to take charge of him. I’ve planned to put up preserves this week.”

“We will,” promised Joan. Amy would adore to help. Amy didn’t know much about newspapers, but she knew a lot about babies. She had played dolls till she was a big girl. Joan had seldom played with dolls even when she was small. Playing about under the desks in the Journal office, using the discarded bits of lead plate for blocks had been more fun than dolls to young Joan. But now—a real baby! She’d like that!

Tommy was installed that very afternoon.

Tommy-by-the-Day, Chub named him when Joan explained to the Journal staff through the open windows that Tommy was to be at her house by the day, and that his mother would bring him early in the morning and call for him after work.

“Me, Tommy-by-the-Day” the baby echoed, patting his chest with one pudgy hand.

While he took his nap, Joan stole off to the Journal, and found Tim hard at work over the Day Nursery story. When he was called into one of the phone booths, she read what he had written. His story covered the facts, but it was stiff and journalistic, somehow. It did not give half an idea how cute Tommy really was. As she stared at the yellow page, Joan was seized with such an amazing inspiration that she trembled, just thinking of it. Oh, she wouldn’t dare do it!

She would. Tim couldn’t do much but scold. She rolled his story out of the machine, inserted another sheet and began to type. She was not used to composing on the typewriter and in her worry and hurry, her fingers struck the wrong keys, but the result was readable. She used all of Tim’s facts in the story, but by merely changing a phrase of his now and then and sticking in a few of her own, she managed to capture all the adorable neediness of that little scamp of a Tommy.

Tim came and shooed her off when she was writing in the middle of it, writing in the heat of creation. Would he be mad?

“What’s the big idea?” he sputtered, but not very loudly, for he was reading her story. “Oh, I see, well—I may use some of your ideas, kid. They’re not half bad.” But Joan suddenly turned shy and fled. Would he kill her?

When Tim came home after work, Tommy was sitting up on the big, red dictionary eating his early supper of rice, milk, and applesauce.

“Cute kid.” Tim pretended to punch him in the stomach by way of welcome. Then he told her, “Nixon said my Day Nursery story was good.” Not a word about her suggestions. But, being Tim, he wouldn’t say anything. “He even said he was going to write his to-morrow’s editorial on the situation, just to see what’ll happen.”

What happened was that the Journal’s readers immediately wrote in on the subject. Some even enclosed checks, but it would take a lot of checks to enlarge the present nursery. New and larger quarters were needed. Since there was no money with which to build, a place would have to be found among the present buildings in Plainfield. At the end of a week one letter suggested that the county offer part of the old Historical Building for use as a day nursery.

The Historical Building was a landmark and was right across the street from the Journal office, on the corner. It contained relics from the time when Plainfield was first settled.

“Why wouldn’t that be a wonderful place?” asked Miss Betty of the rest of the staff later, when Joan was in the Journal office. Every one on the Journal was interested in Tommy, now, and in the nursery problem.

“It would. But they can’t get it,” drawled Cookie. “It’s because of old Mrs. McNulty. She gave a whole room full of junk to the Historical Building, and she wants the place used for that and nothing else. They approached her on the subject once before, soon as folks saw the Day Nursery wasn’t going to be big enough. But she put her foot down. The county doesn’t want to get in bad with her because she’s Hutton’s mother-in-law. The county wouldn’t care—hardly any one but country hicks or school kids go through the building any more, anyway. But the old lady won’t give in....”

“Maybe if she saw Tommy and realized how much the nursery would mean to him,” proposed Miss Betty. “A concrete case might make all the difference to a person like that, and Tommy’s an appealing kid.”

Yes, Tommy was a darling and he was thriving under the girls’ care. That wasn’t vanity. Every one said so. Tommy’s mother told them so every evening when she came to “collect” him. She always looked tired, but as soon as her eyes lighted on her small son, she looked like a different person. “You girls are giving him wonderful care,” she had told them more than once in the short time they had had him. He was getting plumper and healthier every day.

“I believe I will take him round to Mrs. McNulty’s,” Joan determined now. “And let him plead his own case.” She turned and started home. Maybe Mrs. McNulty wasn’t really mean. She was glad, however, that the woman would not know she was a sister to the cub reporter who had left her name off the list of patronesses that time.

She found that “minding” a baby and holding down a job were difficult things to combine. Of course, she hadn’t really a job, but she felt as though Tim’s were her own, somehow—and now she couldn’t keep up with it. Anyway, Tommy was so interesting that she didn’t miss the Journal excitement so much. The tricks that a two-year-old could think up! He had a passion for stealing sugar—all the door knobs were smeary and sticky where his sugary hands had reached to open the doors. You simply had to watch him every single minute, she had discovered. He was at the run-about, reaching age. Nothing was safe from him.

She found Amy waiting for her on the steps of the Martins’ porch, her face tragic. Had something happened to Tommy?

“Joan! Your mother’s got a telegram from your Aunt Effie to come and keep house for her while she’s at a hospital having her appendix taken out. She’s going next week, and that means we can’t keep Tommy, for she says you can’t manage the house and Tim and Tommy both.”

It did look hopeless until Joan remembered about Mrs. McNulty and the Historical Building. Amy fell right in with the plan of taking Tommy to see the old lady. She always welcomed any kind of adventure, and her imagination, fed by the romantic books she read, pounced immediately upon the idea that Mrs. McNulty would take a great fancy to the little boy.

“Maybe she’ll give him a fortune,” she mused. “Probably she’ll get him a nurse with a long veil like you see in the New York papers.”

As soon as Tommy woke up from his nap, they got him ready. They scrubbed his cheeks till they shone like candy apples and brushed his yellow hair, matted from his nap, till it looked like taffy. “Good enough to eat!” thought Joan. No one could resist him.

His diminutive overalls were brushed spic and span and a missing button replaced—with green thread since that was all they could find in a hurry. His worn sandals were polished so thoroughly that some of the shine was brushed on to his pink toes showing through the cut-work.

Mrs. McNulty lived on the North Side, just across the bridge over the glorified creek that divided the main part of Plainfield from the residential section. Amy had borrowed a rickety, cast-off baby cart for Tommy some days ago, and it came in handy now, for it would be too far for his short legs to trudge.

Down Market Street they went, proudly pushing their charge, past the Soldiers’ Monument, without which no Ohio town is complete.

Just before they came to the bridge, they passed a big, yellow brick building with a huge sign across it. “DEPARTMENT of CORRECTION, City of Plainfield,” it read.

“I always hate to pass the jail.” Amy quickened her step.

“You needn’t worry. There’s no robbers or thugs in there, now,” comforted Joan. “Don’t you read the Journal? Cookie had a peachy story about its being empty. It seems our fair city is getting so well-behaved that the few city arrests that are made don’t fill up this jail at all, so they’re taken to the county one. This place isn’t needed, so it’s empty.”

They had hardly crossed the bridge when Master Tommy was tired of the cart and decided to get out. He began to howl his loudest, and since they did not want to present a roaring boy to Mrs. McNulty, they were forced to let him out. Then he insisted upon pushing the buggy himself.

The McNulty homestead had been converted into apartments a few years before. There were a few apartments in Plainfield, and the McNulty one, because of its central location and history, was considered the best. Just as they approached the steps leading up, Tommy banged the buggy into a tree. As he had pushed with all his might he tumbled smack down on the sidewalk. He shed real tears, which mingled with the dirt his face had collected from the sidewalk. One fat knee had gone through the faded overalls, and was stained with blood. The girls picked him up, soothed him and repaired the damages as best they could.

They parked the cart at the steps, hauled Tommy up and rang the McNulty bell. The colored maid eyed them curiously, and answered indifferently that Mrs. McNulty was in. They followed her through a hall that smelled of incense and into a crowded living room, where on a chaise longue, old Mrs. McNulty was reclining. She was so ugly that Joan thought she looked like a witch, in spite of the gray, marceled hair and the trailing lavender robe she had on. She was holding a green bottle to her nose. “Yes?” she lifted her eyebrows. “What is it?”

Both girls started to speak at once, then halted, and ended by being embarrassed. Amy was seized with an uncontrollable desire to giggle. Finally, Joan, giving Amy a withering glance, managed to explain that the Day Nursery needed larger quarters and that the Historical Building had been suggested. She ended her plea by pushing Tommy forward and saying that there was no room for him in the present Day Nursery.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to bring him along. He was not very appealing, with the tear in his overalls, and his dusty sandals on the purple velvet of the rug. He reached for the green bottle, and when it was lifted out of his grasp, he opened his mouth to yell.

“A nasty boy.” Mrs. McNulty continued to sniff at the bottle. “Doesn’t look clean.”

Joan swooped him up before he let out the yell entirely, and tickled him to make him laugh instead. It was too bad, after they had worked so hard to make him presentable.

“And you’ve come to see whether I’ll change my mind about the relics in the building?” went on the old lady. “Of course, I can’t keep the county from giving up part of the building if they decide to, but in that event, I shall most certainly withdraw the things I have there.”

Joan faced the woman over Tommy’s mop of yellow hair. “But what are old relics compared to live babies?” she demanded.

“The relics mean a great deal to me and—to the county, too,” she said, quietly. “Why, the little bed that my father’s father slept in when he was a baby is in that building. I’ll not change my mind.”

She was dismissing them, and there was nothing to do but take the hint and depart.

Tommy, perfectly subdued, smiled up at them when they put him in his cart. Both girls were silent as they started down toward the bridge. What was going to happen to Tommy now?