Jerry's Reward   By: Evelyn Snead Barnett

[Illustration: "THEY NEVER SAW THE OLD FELLOW WITHOUT SHOUTING." ( See page 21 )]

Cosy Corner Series

JERRY'S REWARD

By Evelyn Snead Barnett

Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry

Boston L. C. Page & Company 1903

Copyright, 1900, 1901 By E. S. BARNETT

Copyright, 1902 By L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

Published, May, 1902

Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE INTERRUPTED GAME 11

II. THE SHADOW 16

III. PADDY AND PEGGY 22

IV. HARD TIMES 28

V. PEGGY OVERHEARS A STARTLING CONVERSATION 35

VI. THE POLICE ARE SUMMONED 41

VII. WHERE WAS PEGGY? 49

VIII. LUCK IN DISGUISE 58

IX. PADDY MAKES THE EFFORT OF HIS LIFE 66

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

"THEY NEVER SAW THE OLD FELLOW WITHOUT SHOUTING" ( See page 21 ) Frontispiece

"THEY STOOD IN A LONG ROW" 13

"HE TURNED AROUND SUDDENLY" 19

"'THE TOP OF THE MORNIN' TO YE'" 24

"ALL THE CHILDREN EXCEPT THE BABIES STARTED FOR SCHOOL" 29

"ALTHOUGH SHE WAS WARMLY CLAD, THE RUSH OF COLD AIR MADE HER SHIVER" 39

"'WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING HERE ALONE?'" 44

"A STURDY LEG EMERGING FROM HIS FRONT WINDOW" 53

"AROUND HIS TANNED AND WRINKLED NECK WENT HER WHITE ARMS" 64

"AFTER THEM FOLLOWED THE NURSES, CARRYING THE BABIES" 73

JERRY'S REWARD

CHAPTER I.

THE INTERRUPTED GAME

Jefferson Square was a short street in Gaminsville, occupying just one block. It took only two things on one side of it to fill up the space from corner to corner. One was the Convent of the Good Shepherd, built on a large lot surrounded by a high brick wall; the other, a common where all the people around dumped cinders, rags, tin cans in fact, anything on earth they wished to throw away. On the other side were dwelling houses, and these were filled with children lots of them. There surely were never so many children on one square before!

There were the Earlys, the Rickersons, the Bakers, the Adamses, the Mortons, and the Longs twenty one in all.

There were really twenty eight; but the parents of seven children, though they were not what you might call poor, were not well born like the others, so nobody counted them any more than they included them in the games that the twenty one played. This was sad for the seven little outcasts, but the others never thought about that.

The twenty one had splendid times together. It was play, play, play for ever dolls, pin fairs, circuses, and games. Every afternoon they gathered in the Mortons' front gate, because it was wider and had three stone steps leading down from it, where all the children could sit.

One evening, the latter part of August, the sun had dipped down behind the world, leaving red splashes over a green sky. On seeing it the children played fast and furiously, for they knew only too well that when the sky looked like that they might at any moment be called indoors, made to eat their suppers and go to bed.

[Illustration]

The oldest child of the lot was Henry Clay Morton. He was one of those boys who try to have their way in everything, and generally succeed; so, on this particular evening when he got tired playing "Grammammy Gray" and proposed "Lost My Handkerchief," the others consented without any fuss. The next thing to decide was who should be "ole man." They stood in a long row, and Henry Clay, pointing, began at the top and gave each child a word like this: