232 © Fohnny tries to be Useful.

 

was becoming so very independent,
that he could not at all make out
why he might not go to them quite
by himself, when his mother could
not spare May to go with him.
Indeed, there was something
growing up in our little friend’s
heart— inside him, you know, I
mean—which I will leave you to
find a name for, after I have told
you about some strange things that
it made him do, and a rather awk-
ward plight into which it led him.
Now, Johnny’s father, you must
know, was a man who rather loved
a joke and a laugh; and his young
son often amused him very much by

the queer things that he did and said.