THE POOR THING

A week later Miss Grandis was called home by illness in her family, and

she asked Laura to drive to the station with her.

"I wanted the chance to talk with you," she explained, as they drove

along the quiet country road. "You know I should not have been able to

stay here much longer anyhow, and now I shall not come back, and I want

you to take charge of my girls. Will you?"

"O, I can't yet--I haven't had half enough training," Laura protested.

"I know, but you've put so much into the time you have had in camp, and

I know that Mrs. Royall will be glad to have you in my place. You can

keep on with your training just the same. I want to tell you about the

girls." She told something of the environment of each one--enough to

help Laura to understand their needs. "And there's Elizabeth Page, who

is coming to-morrow," she went on. "I always think of her as the Poor

Thing. O, I do so hope the Camp Fire will do a great deal for her--she's

had so pitifully little in her life thus far. Her mother died when she

was a baby, and she has been just a drudge for her stepmother and the

younger children, and she's not strong enough for such hard work. She's

never had anything for herself. The camp will seem like paradise to her

if she can only get in touch with things--I'm sure it will."

"I'll do my best for her," Laura promised.

"I know you will. And you'll meet her when she comes, to-morrow?"

"Of course," Laura returned.

There was no time to spare when they reached the station, but Miss

Grandis' last word was of Elizabeth and her great need.

Laura was at the station early the next day, and would have recognised

the Poor Thing even if she had not been the only girl leaving the train

at that place. Elizabeth was seventeen, but she might have been taken

for fourteen until one looked into her eyes--they seemed to mirror the

pain and privation of half a century. Laura's heart went out to her in a

wave of pitying tenderness, but the girl drew back as if frightened by

the warm friendliness of her greeting.

All the way back to camp she sat silent, answering a direct question

with a nod or shake of the head, but never speaking; and when, at the

camp, a crowd of girls came to meet the newcomer, she looked wildly

around as if for refuge from all these strangers. Seeing this, Laura,

with a whispered word, sent the girls away, and introduced Elizabeth

only to Mrs. Royall and Anne Wentworth.

"Another scared rabbit?" giggled Louise Johnson.

"Don't call her that, Louise," said Bessie Carroll. "I'm awfully sorry

for the poor thing."

Laura, overhearing the low-spoken words, said to herself, "There it

is--Poor Thing. That name is bound to cling to her, it fits so exactly."

It did fit exactly, and within two days Elizabeth was the Poor Thing to

every girl in the camp. Laura kept the child with her most of the first

day; she was quiet and still as a ghost, did as she was told, and

watched all that went on, but she spoke to no one and never asked a

question. At night she was given a cot next to Olga's. When Laura showed

her her place at bedtime, she pointed to the adjoining tent.

"I sleep right there, Elizabeth," she said, "and if you want anything in

the night, just speak, and I shall hear you. But I hope you will sleep

so soundly that you won't know anything till morning. It's lovely

sleeping out of doors like this!"

Elizabeth said nothing, but she shivered as she cast a fearful glance

into the shadowy spaces beyond the tents, and Laura hastened to add,

"You needn't be a bit afraid. Nothing but birds and squirrels ever come

around here."

Elizabeth went early to bed, and was apparently sound asleep when the

other girls went to their cots. But after all was still and the camp

lights out, she lay trembling, and staring wide-eyed into the darkness.

A thousand strange small sounds beat on her strained ears, and when

suddenly the hoot of an owl rang out from a nearby treetop, Elizabeth

sprang up with a frightened cry and clutched wildly at the girl in the

nearest cot.

Olga's cold voice answered her cry. "It's nothing but an owl, you goose!

Go back to your bed!"

But Elizabeth was on her knees, clinging desperately to Olga's hand.

"O, I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she moaned. "Please _please_ let me stay

here with you. I never was in a p-place like this before."

Olga jerked her hand away from the clinging fingers. "Get back to your

bed!" she ordered under her breath. "Anybody'd think you were a _baby_."

"I don't care _what_ anybody'd think if you'll only let me stay. I--I

must touch s-somebody," wailed the Poor Thing in a choked voice.

"Well, it won't be me you'll touch," retorted Olga. "And if you don't

keep still I'll report you in the morning. You'll have every girl in the

camp awake presently."

"O, I don't care," sobbed Elizabeth under her breath. "I--I want to go

home. I'd rather die than stay here!"

"Well, die if you like, but leave the rest of us to sleep in peace,"

muttered Olga, and turning her face away from the wretched little

creature crouching at her side, she went calmly to sleep.

When she awoke she gave a casual glance at the next cot. It was empty,

but on the floor was a small huddled figure, one hand still clutching

Olga's blanket. Olga started to yank the blanket away, but the look of

suffering in the white face stayed her impatient hand. She touched the

thin shoulder of Elizabeth, and for once her touch was almost gentle.

Elizabeth opened her eyes with a start as Olga whispered, "Get back to

your bed. There's an hour before rising time."

Elizabeth crawled slowly back to her own cot, but she did not sleep

again. Neither did Olga, and she was uncomfortably aware that a pair of

timid blue eyes were on her face until she turned her back on them.

At ten o'clock that morning the girls all trooped down to the water.

Some in full knickerbockers and middy blouses were going to row or

paddle, but most wore bathing suits. With some difficulty Laura

persuaded Elizabeth to put on a bathing suit that Miss Grandis had left

for her, but no urging or coaxing could induce her to go into the water

even to wade, though other girls were swimming and splashing and

frolicking like mermaids. Elizabeth sat on the sand, her eyes following

Olga's dark head as the girl swept through the water like a

fish--swimming, floating, diving--she seemed as much at home in the

water as on land.

"You can do all those things too, Elizabeth, if you will," Laura told

her. "Look at Myra, there--she has always been afraid to try to swim,

but she's learning to-day, and see how she is enjoying it."

Elizabeth drew further into her shell of silence. She cast a fleeting

glance at Myra Karr, nervously trying to obey Mary Hastings' directions

and "act like a frog"--then her eyes searched again for Olga, now far

out in the bay.

When she could not distinguish the dark head, anxiety at last conquered

her timidity, and she turned to Laura:

"O, is she drowned?" she cried under her breath. "Olga--is she?"

Anne Wentworth laughed out at the question. "Why, Elizabeth," she said,

leaning towards her, "Olga's a perfect fish in the water. She's the best

swimmer in camp. Look--there she comes now."

She came swimming on her side, one strong brown arm cutting swiftly and

steadily through the water. When presently she walked up on the beach, a

pale smile glimmered over Elizabeth's face, but it vanished at Olga's

glance as she passed with the scornful fling--"Haven't even wet your

feet--_baby_!"

Elizabeth's face flushed and she drew her bare feet under her.

"Never mind, you'll wet them to-morrow, won't you, Elizabeth?" Laura

said; but the Poor Thing made no reply; she only gulped down a sob as

she looked after the straight young figure in the dripping bathing suit

marching down the beach.

"She notices no one but Olga," Laura said as she walked back to camp

with her friend. "If Olga would only take an interest in _her_!"

"If only she would!" Anne agreed. "But she seems to have no more feeling

than a fish!"

Many of the girls did their best to draw the Poor Thing out of her shell

of scared silence, but they all failed. And Olga would do nothing. Yet

Elizabeth followed Olga like her shadow day after day. Olga's impatient

rebuffs--even her angry commands--only made the Poor Thing hang back a

little.

When things had gone on so for a week, Laura asked Olga to go with her

to the village. She went, but they were no sooner on the road than she

began abruptly, "I know what you want of me, Miss Haven, but it's no

use. I can't be bothered with that Poor Thing--she makes me sick--always

hanging around and wanting to get her hands on me. I can't stand that

sort of thing, and I won't--that's all there is about it. I'll go home

first."

When Laura answered nothing, Olga glanced at her grave face and went on

sulkily, "Nobody ought to expect me to put up with an everlasting

trailer like that girl."

Still Laura was silent until Olga flung out, "You might as well say it.

I know what you are thinking of me."

"I wasn't thinking of you, Olga. I was thinking of Elizabeth. If you saw

her drowning you'd plunge in and save her without a moment's

hesitation."

"Of course I would--but I wouldn't have her hanging on to me like a

leech after I'd saved her."

"I suppose you have not realised that in 'hanging on' to you--as you

express it--she is simply fighting for her life."

"What do you mean, Miss Haven?"

"I mean that Elizabeth is--starving. Not food starvation, but a worse

kind. Olga, this is the first time in her life that she has ever spent a

day away from home--she told me that--or ever had any one try to make

her happy. Is it any wonder that she doesn't know how to _be_ happy or

make friends? It seems strange that, from among so many who would gladly

be her friends here, she should have chosen you who are not willing to

be a friend to any one--strange, and a great pity, it seems. It throws

an immense responsibility upon you."

"I don't want any such responsibility. I don't think any of you ought to

put it on me," Olga flung out sulkily.

"We are not putting it on you," returned Laura gently.

Olga twitched her shoulder with an impatient gesture, and the two walked

some distance before she spoke again. Then it was to say, "What are you

asking me to do, anyhow?"

"_I_ am not asking you to do anything," Laura answered. "It is for you

to ask yourself what you are going to do. I believe it is in your power

to make over that poor girl mind and body--I might almost say, soul too.

She thinks she can do nothing but household drudgery. She is afraid of

everything. When I think of what you could do for her in the next

month--Olga, I wonder that you can let such a wonderful opportunity pass

you by."

They went the rest of the way mostly in silence. When they returned to

the camp, Elizabeth was watching for them, but the glance Olga gave her

was so repellent that she shrank away, and went off alone to the

Lookout. Later Laura tried to interest Elizabeth in the making of a

headband of beadwork, but though she evidently liked to handle the

bright-coloured beads, she would not try to do the work herself.

"I can't. I can't do things like that," she said with gentle

indifference, her eyes wandering off in search of Olga.

The next day, however, Laura came to Anne Wentworth, her eyes shining.

"O Anne, what _do_ you think?" she cried. "Olga had Elizabeth in wading

this morning. Isn't that fine?"

"Fine indeed--for a beginning. It shows what Olga might do with her if

she would."

"Yes, for she was so cross with her! I wondered that Elizabeth did not

go away and leave her. No other girl in camp would let Olga speak to her

as she speaks to that Poor Thing."

"No, the others are not Poor Things, you see--that makes all the

difference. But that Olga should take the trouble to make Elizabeth do

anything is a big step in advance--for Olga."

"There is splendid material in Olga, Anne--I am sure of it," Laura

returned.

There was splendid persistence in her, anyhow. She had undertaken to

overcome Elizabeth's fear of the water, but it was a harder task than

she had imagined. She did make the Poor Thing wade--clinging tightly to

Olga's fingers all the time--but further than that she could not lead

her. Day after day Elizabeth would stand shivering and trembling in

water up to her knees, her cheeks so white and her lips so blue that

Olga dared not compel her to go further. Yet day after day Olga made her

wade in that far at least; not once would she allow her to omit it.

One day she sat for a long time looking gravely at the Poor Thing, who

flushed and paled nervously under that steady silent scrutiny. At last

Olga said abruptly, "What do you like best, Elizabeth?"

"Like--best----" Elizabeth faltered uncertainly.

Olga frowned and repeated her question.

Elizabeth shook her head slowly. "I--I like Molly. And the other

children--a little."

"You mean your brothers and sisters?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"Which is Molly?"

"The littlest one. She's four, and she's real pretty," Elizabeth

declared proudly. "She's prettier than Annie Pearson."

"Yes, but what do you yourself like?" Olga persisted. "What would you

like to have--pretty dresses, ribbons--what?"

"I--I never thought," was the vague reply.

Again Olga's brows met in a frown that made the Poor Thing shrink and

tremble. She brought out her necklace and tossed it into the other

girl's lap.

"Think that's pretty?" she asked.

"O _yes_!" Elizabeth breathed softly. She did not touch the necklace,

but gazed admiringly at the bright-coloured beads as they lay in her

lap.

"You can have one like it if you want," Olga told her.

"O no! Who'd give me one?"

"Nobody. But you can get it for yourself. See here--I got all those blue

beads by learning about the wild flowers that grow right around here,

the weeds and stones and animals and birds. You can get as many in a few

days. I got that green one for making a little bit of a basket,

that--for making my washstand there out of a soap box--that, for

trimming my hat. Every bead on that necklace is there because of some

little thing I did or made--all things that you can do too."

The Poor Thing shook her head. "O _no_," she stammered in her weak

gentle voice, "I can't do anything. I--I ain't like other girls."

"You can be if you want to," Olga flung out at her impatiently.

"Say--what _can_ you do? You can do something."

"No--nothing." The Poor Thing's blue eyes filled slowly with big tears,

and she looked through them beseechingly at the other. Olga drew a long

exasperated breath. She wanted to take hold of the girl's thin shoulders

and shake the limpness out of her once for all.

"What did you do at home?" she demanded with harsh abruptness.

"N--nothing," Elizabeth answered with a miserable gulp.

"You did too! Of course you did something," Olga flamed. "You didn't sit

and stare at Molly and the others all day the way you stare at me, did

you? _What_ did you do, I say?"

Elizabeth gave her a swift scared glance as she stammered, "I didn't do

anything but cook and sweep and wash and iron and take care of the

children--truly I didn't."

Olga's face brightened. "Good heavens--if you aren't the limit!" she

shrugged. Then she sprang up and got pencil and paper. "What can you

cook?" she demanded, and proceeded to put Elizabeth through a rapid-fire

examination on marketing, plain cooking, washing, ironing, sweeping,

bed-making, and care of babies. At last she had found some things that

even the Poor Thing could do. With flying fingers she scribbled down the

girl's answers. Finally she cried excitingly, "_There!_ See what a goose

you were to say you couldn't do anything! Why, there are lots of girls

here who couldn't do half these things. Elizabeth Page, listen. You've

got twelve orange beads like those," she pointed to the

necklace--"already, for a beginning. That's more than I have of that

colour. I don't know anything about taking care of babies, nor half what

you do about cooking and marketing."

Elizabeth stared, her mouth half open, her eyes widened in incredulous

wonder. "But--but," she faltered, "I guess there's some mistake. Just

housework and things like that ain't anything to get beads for--are

they?"

"They are _that_! I tell you Mrs. Royall will give you twelve honours

and twelve yellow beads at the next Council Fire, and if you half try

you can win some blue and brown and red ones too before that, and you've

just _got to do it_. Do you understand?"

The other nodded, her eyes full of dumb misery. Then she began to

whimper, "I--I--can't ever do things like you and the rest do," she

moaned.

"Why not? You can walk, can't you?"

"W--walk?"

"Yes--_walk_! Didn't hurt you to walk to the village yesterday, did it?"

"No--but I couldn't go--alone."

"Who said anything about going alone? You'll walk to Slabtown and back

with me to-morrow."

"O, I'd like that--with you," said the Poor Thing, brightening.

Olga gave an impatient sniff. Sometimes she almost hated

Elizabeth--almost but not quite.

"You'll go with me to-morrow," she declared, "but next day you'll go

with some other girl."

Elizabeth shrank into herself, shaking her head.

Olga eyed her sternly. "Very well--if you won't go with some other girl,

you can't go with me to-morrow," she declared.

But the next day after breakfast the two set off for Slabtown. Halfway

there, Elizabeth suddenly crumpled up and dropped in a limp heap by the

roadside.

"What's the matter?" Olga demanded, standing over her.

Elizabeth lifted tired eyes. "I don't know. You walked so--fast," she

panted.

"Fast!" echoed Olga scornfully; but she sat on a stone wall and waited

until a little colour had crept back into the other girl's thin cheeks,

and went at a slower pace afterwards.

"There! Do that every day for a week and you'll have one of your red

beads," was her comment when they were back at camp. "And now go lie in

that hammock."

When from the kitchen she brought a glass of milk and some crackers, she

found Elizabeth sitting on the ground.

"Why didn't you get into the hammock as I told you?" she demanded, and

the Poor Thing answered vaguely that she "thought maybe they wouldn't

want" her to.

Olga poked the milk at her. "Drink it!" she ordered, "and eat those

crackers," and when Elizabeth had obeyed, added, "Now get into that

hammock and lie there till dinner-time," and meekly Elizabeth did so.

When, later in the day, some of the younger girls started a game of

blindman's buff, Olga seized Elizabeth's hand. "Come," she said, "we're

going to play too."

"O, I can't! I--I never did," cried the Poor Thing, hanging back.

"I never did either, but I'm going to now and so are you. Come!" and

Elizabeth yielded to the imperative command.

The other girls stared in amazement as the two joined them. It was

little Bess Carroll who smiled a welcome as Louise Johnson cried out,

"Wonders will never cease-_-Olga Priest playing a game!_"

She spoke to Mary Hastings, who answered hastily, "Bless her

heart--she's doing it just to get that Poor Thing to play. Let's take

them right in, girls."

The girls were quick to respond. Olga was the next one caught, and when

she was blinded she couldn't help catching Elizabeth, who stood still,

never thinking of getting out of the way. Elizabeth didn't want the

handkerchief tied over her eyes, but she submitted meekly, at a look

from Olga. Half a dozen girls flung themselves in her way, and the one

on whom her limp grasp fell ignored the fact that Elizabeth could not

name her, and gaily held up the handkerchief to be tied over her own

eyes in turn. Nobody caught Olga again. She was as quick as a flash and

as slippery as an eel. Elizabeth's eyes followed her constantly, and a

little glimmer of a smile touched her lips as Olga slipped safely out of

reach of one catcher after another.

When she pulled Elizabeth out of the noisy merry circle, Olga glanced at

the clock in the dining-room and made a swift calculation.

"Three-quarters of an hour--blindman's buff."

"We've got to play at some game every day, Elizabeth," she announced,

with grim determination. She hated games, but Elizabeth must win her red

beads and the red blood for which they stood. She had undertaken to make

something out of this jellyfish of a girl and she did not mean to fail.

That was all there was about it. So every day she led forth the

reluctant Elizabeth and patiently stood over her while she blundered

through a game of basket-ball, hockey, prisoner's base, or whatever the

girls were playing. But Elizabeth made small progress. Always she barely

stumbled through her part, helped in every way by Olga and often by

other girls who helped her for Olga's sake.

It was Mary Hastings who broke out earnestly one day, looking after the

two going down the road, "I say, girls, we're just a lot of selfish pigs

to leave that Poor Thing on Olga's hands all the time. It must be misery

to her to have Elizabeth hanging on to her as she does--a dead weight."

"Right you are! I should think she'd hate the Poor Thing--I should. I

should take her down to the dock some night and drown her," said Louise

Johnson with her inevitable giggle.

"I think Olga deserves all the honours there are for the way she endures

that--jellyfish," said Edith Rue.

"I never saw any one thaw out the way Olga has lately though. She really

deigns to speak amiably now--sometimes," Annie Pearson put in with a

sniff.

"She 'deigns' to do anything under the sun that will help that Poor

Thing to be a bit like other girls," cried Mary. "Olga is splendid,

girls! She makes me ashamed of myself twenty times a day. Do you realise

what it means? She is trying to make that Poor Thing _live_. She just

exists now. O, we must help her--we must--every single one of us!"

"But how, Molly? We're willing enough to help, but we don't know how.

Elizabeth turns her back on every one of us except Olga--you know she

does."

"I know," Mary admitted, "but if we really try we can find ways to

help."

When, compelled by Olga's unyielding determination, the Poor Thing had

taken a three-mile tramp every day for a week, she began to enjoy it,

and did not object when another mile was added. She was always happy

when she was with Olga, but at other times--when they were not

walking--her content was marred by the consciousness that Olga was not

really pleased with her because she could not do so many things that the

others wanted her to do--like beadwork and basketwork, and above all,

swimming. But Olga was pleased with her when she went willingly on these

daily tramps.

The Poor Thing seemed to find something particularly attractive about

the Slabtown settlement, and liked better to go in that direction than

any other. She would often stop and watch the dirty half-naked babies

playing in the bare yards; and as she watched them there would come into

her face a look that Olga could not understand--Olga, who had never had

a baby sister to love and cuddle.

One day when the two approached the little settlement, they saw half a

dozen boys and girls walking along the top of a stone-wall that bordered

the road. A baby girl--not yet three--was begging the others to help her

up, but they refused.

"You can't get up here, Polly John--you're too little!" the boys shouted

at her. But evidently Polly John had a will of her own, for she made

such an outcry that at last her sister exclaimed, "We've got to take her

up--she'll yell till we do," and to the baby she cried, "Now you hush

up, Polly, an' ketch hold o' my hand."

The baby held up her hand and with a jerk she was pulled to the top of

the wall, but by no means did she "hush up." She writhed and twisted and

screamed, but there was a difference now--a note of pain and terror in

the shrill cries.

"What ails her? What's she yellin' for now?" one boy demanded, and

another shouted, "Take her down, Peggy. You get down with her."

"I won't, either!" Peggy retorted angrily, but she was sitting on the

wall now, holding the baby half impatiently, half anxiously.

"Look at her arm. What makes her stick it out like that?" one boy

questioned.

The big sister took hold of the small arm, but at her touch the baby's

cries redoubled, and a woman put her head out of a window and sharply

demanded what they were doing to that child anyhow.

It was then that the Poor Thing suddenly darted across the road and

caught the wailing child from the arms of her astonished sister.

"O, don't touch her arm!" Elizabeth cried. "Don't you see? It's hurting

her dreadfully. You slipped it out of joint when you pulled her up

there."

"I didn't, either! Much you know about it!" the older girl flashed back,

sticking out her tongue. But the fear in her eyes belied her impudence.

"Where's her mother?" Elizabeth demanded.

"She ain't got none," chorused all the children.

Several women now came hurrying out to see what was the matter. One of

them held out her arms to the child, but she hid her face on Elizabeth's

shoulder, and still kept up her frightened wailing.

"How d'ye know her arm's out o' joint?" one of the women demanded when

Peggy had repeated what Elizabeth had said.

"I do know because I pulled my little sister's arm out just that way

once, lifting her over a crossing. O, I _wish_ I knew how to slip it in

again! It wouldn't take a minute if we only knew how. Now we must get

her to a doctor--quick. It is hurting her dreadfully, you know--that's

why she keeps crying so!"

"A doctor! Ain't no doctor nearer'n East Bassett," one woman said.

"East Bassett! Then we must take her there," Elizabeth said to Olga, who

for once stood by silent and helpless.

"We can get her there in twenty minutes--maybe fifteen if we walk fast,"

she said.

"Then"--Elizabeth questioned the women--"can any of you take her there?"

The women exchanged glances. "It's 'most dinner time--my man will be

home," said one. The others all had excuses; no one offered to take the

child to East Bassett. No one really believed in the necessity. What did

this white-faced slip of a girl know about children, anyhow?

"Then I'll take her myself," the Poor Thing declared. "I guess I can

carry her that far."

"An' who'll bring her back?" demanded the child's sister gloomily.

"You must come with me and bring her back," Elizabeth answered with

decision. "Come quick! I tell you it's hurting her awfully. Don't you

see how white she is?"

Peggy looked at the little face all white and drawn with pain, and

surrendered.

"I'll go," she said meekly, and without more words, Elizabeth set off

with the child in her arms. Olga followed in silence, and Peggy trailed

along in the rear, but as she went she turned and shouted back to one

of the boys, "Jimmy, you come along too with the wagon to bring her home

in," and presently a freckled-faced boy, with straw-coloured hair, had

joined the procession. The wagon he drew was a soapbox fitted with a

pair of wheels from a go-cart.

"Let me carry her, Elizabeth--she's too heavy for you," Olga said after

a few minutes; but the child clung to Elizabeth, refusing to be

transferred, and at the pressure of the little yellow head against her

shoulder, Elizabeth smiled.

"I can carry her," she said. "She's not so very heavy. She makes me

think of little Molly."

So Elizabeth carried the child all the way, and held her still when they

reached East Bassett and by rare good luck found the doctor at home. He

was an old man, and over his glasses he looked up with a twinkle of

amusement as the party of five trailed into his office. But the next

instant he demanded abruptly,

"What ails that child?"

"It's her arm--see?" Elizabeth said. "It's out of joint."

"Yes!" The doctor snapped out the word. Then his hands were on the

baby's shoulder, there was a quick skilful twist, a shriek of pain and

terror from the baby, and the bone slipped into place.

"There, that's all right. She's crying now only because she's

frightened," the doctor said, snapping his fingers at the child. "How

did it happen?"

Elizabeth explained.

"Well, I guess you'll know better than to lift a baby by the arm another

time," the doctor said, with a kindly smile into Elizabeth's tired face.

"Is it your sister?"

"No--hers." Elizabeth indicated Peggy, who twisted her bare feet

nervously one over the other as the doctor looked her over. "They live

at Slabtown," Elizabeth added.

"O--at Slabtown. And where do you live?"

"I'm--we," Elizabeth's gesture included Olga, "we are at the camp."

"And how came you mixed up in this business?" The doctor meant to know

all about the affair now. When Elizabeth had told him, he looked at her

curiously. "And so you lugged that heavy child all the way down here?"

he said.

"Olga wanted to carry her, but the baby wouldn't let her--and she was

crying, so----" Elizabeth's voice trailed off into silence.

The doctor smiled at her again. Then suddenly he inquired in a gruff

voice, "Well now, who's going to pay me for this job--you?"

"_O!_" cried Elizabeth, her eyes suddenly very anxious. "I--I never

thought of that. It was hurting her so--and she's so little--I just

thought--thought----" Again she left her sentence unfinished.

"What's her name? Who's her father?" the doctor demanded.

Peggy answered, "Father's Jim Johnson. I guess mebbe he'll pay

you--sometime."

The doctor's face changed. He remembered when Jim Johnson's wife died a

year before--he remembered the three children now.

"There's nothing to pay," he said kindly, "only be careful how you pull

your little sister around by the arms after this. Some children can

stand that sort of handling, but she can't."

"O, thank you!" Elizabeth's eyes full of gratitude were lifted to the

old doctor's face as she spoke. He rose, and looking down at her, laid a

kindly hand on her shoulder.

"That camp's a good place for you. Stay there as long as you can," he

said. "But don't lug a three-year-old a mile and a half again. You are

hardly strong enough yet for that kind of athletics."

They all filed out then, and Elizabeth put little Polly John into the

soapbox wagon, kissed the small face, dirty and tear-stained as it was,

and stood for a moment looking after the three children as they set off

towards Slabtown.

As they went on to the camp, Olga kept glancing at Elizabeth in silent

wonder. Was this really the Poor Thing who could not do anything--who

would barely answer "yes" or "no" when any one spoke to her? Olga

watched her in puzzled silence.

V