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Updated: May 29, 2025
He was passing the house after having asked three people if they wanted a boy, and they didn't, and seemed so surprised at the idea of their wanting him that Stubby's throat was all tight, when Mr. Stuart sang out: "Say, boy, want a little job?"
And she left him, never dreaming why Stubby had seen there was no use talking about it. Nor did he talk about it; but a change came over Stubby's funny little person in the next few days.
It struck MacRae that there was something more than mere casual speculation in Stubby's words. But he did not attempt to delve into motives. "A good general," he said with a dry smile, "doesn't advertise his plan of campaign in advance. Without Crow Harbor as a market I could not have done what I have done this season. But Crow Harbor could shut down to-morrow and I'd go on just the same."
He was going to break his back and wring his head off and do other heartless things which for some reason he never started in right then and there to accomplish. It was different when they were alone and they were alone a good deal. Stubby's route wasn't nearly so long after he had Hero to go with him.
He was aware that Stubby had the curious dual code common in the business world, one set of inhibitions and principles for business and another for personal and social uses. A man might be Stubby's opponent in the market and his friend when they met on a common social ground. MacRae could never be quite like that.
It was one of those moments when Hero, forgetting the bleakness of his youth, abandoned himself to the joy of living. He was tearing round and round Stubby, barking, when Stubby's father called out: "Here! shut up there, you cur. You better lie low. You're going to be shot the first of August."
That evening as they were sitting in the back yard Stubby and Hero a little apart from the others his father was discoursing with his brother about anarchists. They were getting commoner, his father thought. There were a good many of them at the shop. They didn't call themselves that, but that was what they were. "Well, what is an anarchist, anyhow?" Stubby's mother wanted to know.
At those times Hero would lick Stubby's face and whimper a little love whimper and such were the workings of Stubby's heart and mind that that made him of quite as much account as if he really had chased the chickens. Stubby, who had seen the way dogs can look at you out of their eyes, was not one to say of a dog, "What good is he?" But it seemed there were such people.
"That cuts no ice. Hard luck, sonny, but we've got to take our medicine in this world. 'Taint no medicine for kids, though," he muttered. Stubby's face just then was too much for him. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a dime, saying: "There now. You run along and get you a soda and forget your troubles. It ain't always like this. You'll have better luck next time."
"I've heard of you," she said, and her extended hand put the pressure of the seal of sincerity on her words. "I've wanted to thank you. You can scarcely know what you did for us. Stubby's the only man in the family, you know." MacRae smiled. "Why," he said easily, "little things like that were part of the game. Stubb used to pull off stuff like that himself now and then."
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