51�Թ�

Jeremiah Hughes was mowing a lawn on a Wednesday afternoon when two men barged through an alley gate.

Whereupon the white one, finding itself the bigger, closed on the brown one and Emmy Lou led Sister in through the alley gate, past Aunt M'randy, and up through the yard with its tree and its bush and its whilom flower border.

And beyond this alley gate, outside which stood the barrel they were seeking, in the alley itself, with the cottage shanties of the alley world for background, stood Sister!

"M'randy saw them when they reached home and passed her kitchen window going back through the yard, and came and told me, and she and I went down to the alley gate after them."

By the time Bob was ready and out looking for her, she had been down through the alley gate and back, bringing by the hand that person littler than herself, Sister.