"Well, he wrote in big letters on a card, 'When you want a drink, remember there is a spring in your bed.' And then he hitched it to the foot-rail where I couldn't help seeing it every time I looked that way.

Wasn't that hateful? Of course it made me laugh, and it _did_ help me think of something else when I was so thirsty that it seemed as if I'd dry up if they didn't give me a teenty drink. _He_ knows how to make sick folks well."

"He couldn't make my baby well," the woman blurted out with such bitterness that Peace recoiled, shocked.

"I'll bet he could have, if anyone could," she declared staunchly after her first start of surprise.

"Yes, I suppose so. That is what Ed said," answered the bereft mother more quietly.

"Is Ed your husband?"

"Yes."

"I thought he was dead!"

"Ed? Why, no! What put that idea into your head?"

"You are all rigged out in black--"

"My baby is dead."

"So is Elspeth's, but she never wears black. St. John likes to see her in blue, so she wears that color lots. It just matches her eyes. St.

John is a perfectly good husband--"

"So is Ed," interrupted Mrs. Wood, with a pa.s.sion that surprised her.

"No one can say one word against Ed. He is as good as gold."

"Does he like black on you?"

"Why--er--I don't know."

"I never saw a man yet that did," Peace commented sagely. "Grandpa has fits when Grandma gets into an all-black rig. He says it looks too gloomy. That's what St. John and Elspeth think, too, so she never wears it."

"Who are they?" asked Mrs. Wood, for want of anything else to say, because the child's criticism of her attire had sharply reminded her of her own husband's frank disapproval.

"St. John was our minister in Parker, but now he has the Hill Street Church in Martindale, where I live. Elspeth is his wife. They let me name their twins, but the Tiniest One died before I could find a pretty enough name for it."

"Ah! She still has something to live for. No wonder she can dress in blue. She didn't lose her only child."

"'Twouldn't have made any difference if she had lost her whole family,"

Peace replied, unconsciously pushing the sharp arrow deeper and deeper into her unwilling visitor's heart. "She'd have gone to work and adopted some to raise. That's what Grandpa and Grandma did."

"I thought you said your grandfather was President of the State University."

"I did. But he ain't our real grandfather. His only two children died when they were little, and 'cause my own Grandpa had adopted him when they were boys, Grandpa Campbell adopted the whole kit of us when he found out who we were and that we were _orphants_. There are six of us, but he said he'd have taken the whole bunch if there'd been a dozen.

That's the kind of a fellow he is, and Elspeth is just like him. Why don't you adopt a baby?"

"Why--why--why--"

"Would Ed kick?"

"No, Ed never kicks. He lets me do anything I please."

Mrs. Wood, with a curious, baffled feeling in her heart, wondered why she sat there listening to a spoiled child's silly chatter when every word stung her to the quick, and yet she made no effort to change her position.

"Well, if my husband would let me adopt a baby, I tell you it wouldn't take me long to find one."

"Your husband?"

"Yes, s'posing I had one."

"You are but a child. You don't know what you are talking about. You cannot understand. An adopted baby never can fill the place of one's own lost one."

"How do you know? You never did it, either. Babies are such cunning things. No one can help loving them if they've got any kind of a heart.

There is poor little Billy Bolee. He is just as pretty as he can be, but he's lame. Dr. d.i.c.k says one leg will always be shorter than the other, and he hasn't anyone to take care of him now, nor any home to go to. His mother was killed in a railroad accident. They are going to ship him off to the _orphant_ asylum next week, Miss Keith says. If he was only a girl, Aunt Pen would take him to raise, but they've decided not to have any boys at Oak Knoll. Guiseppe and Rivers were the only ones ever there, and now Rivers' mother can take him again, and Aunt Pen has sent Guiseppe across the ocean to study music. 'F I was bigger I'd adopt Billy myself. I just love babies. When I grow up I'm going to be mother of forty girls, like Aunt Pen is."

Amused, shocked, scandalized, the young woman in black listened to the strange prattle of the child, who spoke as she thought; but when the busy tongue momentarily ceased its chatter, and Peace sat gazing thoughtfully out across the green fields where already the grain grew thick and tall, Mrs. Wood timidly ventured the question, "How old is Billy Bolee?"

"O, he's a little fellow. Dr. d.i.c.k says he prob'ly wasn't more'n two years old when he first came to the hospital, but he has been here as much as six months now. He couldn't talk American at first, and Dr.

Kruger had to tell the nurses what he said. But even Dr. Kruger couldn't understand what his name was, so they took to calling him Billy Bolee.

He's Dutch, you know. They let him run all around the place now, and he is the dearest little fellow!"

"Where is he now?"

"O, I expect he's in the office. Miss Murch tries to keep him there as much as she can, so's they will know where he is, I guess. Sometimes he gets pretty noisy and the sick folks don't like to have him running up and down the halls."

"By the way, I meant to have spoken to Miss Murch about some supplies our Aid Society wants to purchase for the hospital. I think I'll just slip downstairs now and attend to it while I am waiting for d.i.c.kson. If he comes before I get back, tell him that I am in the office." Almost before Peace realized it, she was gone, and the invalid was left to her own devices once more.

When the busy doctor, detained longer than he had expected to be, returned for his sister, she was nowhere in sight, and Peace lay fast asleep in her wheel-chair by the window.

"Guess Kit got tired of waiting for me and went home," he mused. So he hurried down the stairway and was about to step out of the great front doors, when a familiar, ringing laugh from the office close by made him pause and open his eyes in wonder, as he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under his breath, "If that isn't Kit, I'll eat my hat!"

Before he could retrace his steps, however, a flushed, radiant figure flashed into the hallway, and Keturah--a rejuvenated Kit with a crimson carnation in her belt and another tucked in the coils of her glossy hair--exclaimed, "O, d.i.c.k, come see what this little rogue has done!"

Then he noticed what had escaped his attention before,--she was leading little lame Billy Bolee by the hand. Puzzled, yet strangely relieved at the vision, the doctor followed her into the office, where she pointed at scores of little red and green patches plastered hit or miss on the smooth walls.

"Why, what--?" he began.

"See what they are?" asked the amused sister.

He looked more closely at the haphazard decorations, then exclaimed, "Postage stamps, I'll be bound!"

"Yes. Five dollars' worth," laughed Keturah infectiously. "And the worst of it is, most of them will have to be soaked off with water. Billy Bolee did his job well. Do you suppose the mucilage will make him sick?

By the way, d.i.c.kson, I am going to take Billy home with me. It won't be too cool in the auto for him without any wraps, will it? He has nothing but a heavy winter coat, and he will _roast_ in that."

Slowly the doctor turned and looked searchingly at his sister. She flushed under his gaze, but did not flinch.

"I have been talking to Dr. Kruger," she said, as if in answer to his unspoken question, "and he thinks there will be no difficulty about our securing adoption papers,--if we decide to keep him."