He was covered with snow. His face, though moderately black as a usual thing, was now gray with the cold. His black eyes, even, seemed faded.

He was scantily clad, and his whole body was trembling with the cold.

"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun, beckoning to the strange boy. "Come up here!"

The boy in the snow seemed scarcely to understand. Or else he was so cold and exhausted that he could not immediately get up from the step on which he was sitting.

CHAPTER III

UNCLE SAM'S NEPHEW

The fluffy, sticky snowflakes gathered very fast upon the colored boy's clothing. As Mun Bun had first announced, he looked like a snowman, only his face was grayish-black.

He was slim, and when he finally stood up at the bottom of the house steps, he seemed to waver just like a slim reed in the fierce wind that drove the snowflakes against him. He hesitated, too. It seemed that he scarcely knew whether it was best to mount the steps to Aunt Jo's front door or not.

"Come up here!" cried Mun Bun again, and continued to beckon to him through the gla.s.s of the outer door.

Margy held up her coat and cap, and beckoned to the boy also. He looked much puzzled as he slowly climbed the steps. His lips moved and the children knew he asked:

"What yo' want of me, child'en?"

Mun Bun tugged at the outer door eagerly, and finally it flew open. He shouted in the face of the driving snow:

"Come in here, snowman. Come in here!"

"I ain't no snowman," drawled the colored boy. "But I sure is as cold as a snowman could possibly be."

"It's warmer inside here than it is out there," Margy said. "Although we're not any too warm. Our steampipes don't hum. But you come in."

"Yes," said Mun Bun, grabbing at the colored boy's cold, wet hand. "You come in here. We have some coats and things you can put on so you won't be cold."

"Ma goodness!" murmured the boy, staring at the garments the children held out to him.

"You can wear 'em," said Margy. "We have more."

"You put on my coat," urged Mun Bun. "It's a boy's coat. You won't want Margy's, for she's a girl."

"Ma goodness!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the colored boy again, "what yo' child'en s'pose I do wid dem t'ings? 'Less I puts 'em up de spout?"

The two children hadn't the first idea as to what he meant by putting the clothing up the spout. But the colored boy meant that he might p.a.w.n them and get some money. He did not offer to take the coats and other things that Margy and Mun Bun tried to put into his hands.

Just at this moment Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo, followed by Russ and Rose, appeared on the stairs. They had missed the two little folks and, as Aunt Jo had said, wrinkling her very pretty nose, that she could "just smell mischief," they had all come downstairs to see what the matter was.

The colored boy spied them. He had evidently been ill used by somebody, for he was very much frightened. He thrust the coats back at the children and turned to get out of the vestibule.

But the door had been sucked to by the wind and it was hard to open again. It was really quite wonderful that Mun Bun had been able to get it open when he and Margy had called the strange colored boy in.

"Don't go!" cried Margy.

"Take my coat, please," urged Mun Bun. "I know it will keep you warm."

And all the time the colored boy was tugging at the handle of the outer door and fairly panting, he was so anxious to get out. Mother Bunker was the first to reach the door into the vestibule, and she opened it instantly.

"Wait!" she commanded the strange boy. "What do you want? What are you doing here?"

But by this time the young fellow had jerked open the outer door, and now he darted out and almost dived down the snowy steps.

"Oh, Mother!" cried Mun Bun, "he's forgot his coat and cap and scarf. I wanted him to wear mine because he was so cold and snowed on."

"And he could have had mine, too," declared Margy quite as earnestly.

"What do these tots mean?" gasped Aunt Jo, holding up both hands.

But Mother Bunker, who understood her little Bunkers very well indeed, in a flash knew all about it. She cried:

"The poor boy! Bring him back! He did look cold and wet."

"Oh, he's just a tramp," objected Aunt Jo.

"He's poor, Josephine, and unfortunate," answered Mother Bunker, as though that settled all question as to what they should do about the colored boy.

Russ Bunker had already got his cap and mackinaw. He darted out of the house, down the steps, and followed the shuffling figure of the colored boy, now all but hidden by the fast-driving snow. How it did snow, to be sure!

"Say! Wait a minute!" Russ called, and caught the strange youth by the elbow.

"What yo' want, little boy?" demanded the other. "I ain't done nothin'

to them child'en. No, I ain't. Dey called me up to dat do' or I wouldn't have been there."

"I know that," said Russ, urgently detaining him. "But come back. My mother wants to speak to you, and I guess my Aunt Jo'll treat you nice, too. You're cold and hungry, aren't you?"

"Sure is," groaned the boy.

"Then they will give you something to eat and let you get warm. You'd better come," added Russ very sensibly, "for it looks as if it would be a big storm."

"Sure do," agreed the colored boy again. "Ah don' like dis snow. Don't have nothin' like dis down whar I come f'om. No, suh."

"Now, come on," said Russ eagerly. "My mother's waiting for us."

The negro lad hesitated no longer. Even Russ saw how weary and weak he was as he stumbled on beside him. His shoes were broken, his trousers were very ragged, and his coat that he had b.u.t.toned up closely was threadbare. His cap was just the wreck of a cap!

"Yo' sure she ain't goin' to send for no policeman, little boy?" queried the stranger. "I wasn't goin' to take them clo'es. No, suh!"

"She understands," said Russ confidently, and holding to the boy's ragged sleeve led him up the steps of Aunt Jo's pretty house.

Russ saw Mr. North, the nice old gentleman who lived over the way, staring out of his window at this surprising fact: Aunt Jo allowing a beggar to enter at her front door! Still, Mr. North, as well as the rest of the neighbors, had decided before this that almost anything astonishing could happen while the six little Bunkers were visiting their Aunt Jo in Boston's Back Bay district.