A Merry Scout

Lakeside Park was fairly a-blossom with children that bright summer morning, babies and babies—chubby little boys in clean jaunty blouses, dainty little girls, fresher than the posies as they skipped about in their spick-and-span frocks—all safeguarded by grown-ups.

Bumpity-bump! Nurses, big sisters, and children turned out in a hurry to make room for Tilda, of the tenement, and baby Maggie in her brand-new coach. Tilda nodded and smiled shyly at the other little boys and girls as she pushed along the gorgeous gocart, a present that very morning from dear, freckled, carrot-headed Pete, of the same crowded tenement. Pete had made it his own self a-purpose for Maggie, out of a nice soap box and a pair of old wheels taken in trade with the rag man. And the red paint—the crowning glory of it all—he had earned doing odd jobs for Michael, the carpenter.