When they were through, Patsey began to pile up the dishes and carry them to the sink. He often did this for Dil, and none of the boys dared chaff him. She rose presently.

The room, the very chair on which she rested her hand, seemed slipping away. All the air was full of feathery blue clouds. There was a curious rushing sound, a great light, a great darkness, and Dil was a little heap on the floor, white as any ghost.

Patsey picked her up in his arms, and screamed as only a boy can scream,-

"Run quick for some one. Dil's dead!"

XIII-THE LAND OF PURE DELIGHT

Owen started out of the door in a great fright. Mrs. Wilson was strolling in her yard, and the boy called to her. There was a side gate that led out in the alley-way. She came through quickly, although she had held very much aloof from these undesirable neighbors.

They had laid Dil on the lounge, stuffed anew and covered with bright cretonne. Patsey looked at her, wild-eyed.

"I think she has only fainted. My sister faints frequently." She began to chafe Dil's hands, and asked them to wet the end of the towel, with which she bathed the small white face, and the brown eyes opened with a smile, a little startled at the stranger bending over her. She closed them again; and Mrs. Wilson nodded to the intensely eager faces crowding about, saying a.s.suringly,-

"She will be all right presently."

Then she glanced around the room. It was clean, and it had some pretty "gift pictures" tacked up on the whitewashed wall. There was a bowl of flowers on the window-sill. The table had a red and white cloth, there were some Chinese napkins, and cheap but pretty dishes. The long towel hanging by the sink was fairly sweet in its cleanliness, and this pale little girl was the housekeeper!

"Have you ever fainted before? What had you been doing?" she asked in a quiet manner.

"We'd been up to Cent'l Park. It was so beautiful! But I guess I got tired out," and Dil smiled faintly. "You see, I was in the hospital in the spring, an' I ain't so strong's I used to be. But I feel all well now."

"Youse jes' lay still there, 'n' Owny, 'n' me'll wash up the dishes."

Patsey colored scarlet as he said this, but he stood his ground manfully.

"They're so good to me!" and Dil looked up into her visitor's eyes with such heartsome grat.i.tude that the lady was deeply touched. "Patsey," she added, "you've got on your best clo'es, 'n' I wish you'd tie on that big apern. Mrs. Wilson won't make fun, I know."

"No, my child; I shall honor him for his carefulness," returned Mrs.

Wilson.

Patsey's face grew redder, if such a thing was possible, but he tied on the ap.r.o.n.

"I ought to have been more neighborly," began Mrs. Wilson, with a twinge of conscience. "I've watched you all so long, and you have all improved so much since old Mrs. Brown was here! But everybody seems so engrossed with business!"

"That's along o' Dil," put in Patsey proudly. "When Dil come things was diff'rent. Dil's got so many nice ways-she allis had."

"Is your mother dead?"

Dil's face was full of scarlet shame and distress, but she could not tell a wrong story.

"Her mother ain't no good," declared Patsey, in his stout championship; for he did not quite like to tell a lie, himself, to the lady, and he knew Dil wouldn't. "But Dil's splendid; and Owny, that's her brother,"

nodding toward him, "is fus' rate. We're keepin' together; an' little Dan, he's in a home bein' took keer of."

"O Patsey!" Dil flushed with a kind of shamefaced pleasure at his praise.

"So you be! I ain't goin' back on you, never." And there was a little gruffness in his voice as is apt to be the case when a lump rises in a big boy's throat. "An' you couldn't tell how nice she's fixed up the place-'twas jes' terrible when she come."

"But you all helped," returned Dil.

"And you are all so much cleaner and nicer," and their visitor smiled.

"Yes; we'm gittin' quite tony." Patsey slung out the dishcloth and hung it up, and spread the towel on a bar across the window. Fin and Shorty edged their way out, and Fossett settled to a story paper. Owny wanted to go with the boys, but he compromised by sitting in the doorway.

"There is a little child here through the week, and I've seen a baby. My child, you are not compelled to care for them, are you?"

"We didn't want her to," protested Patsey; "but you see, there was another pooty little thing, her sister Bess, who was hurted 'n' couldn't walk, 'n' Dil took care of her. 'N' las' winter she died, 'n' Dil's been kinder broodin' over it ever sence. We wos off all day, 'n' she got lonesome like; but she ain't gonter have 'em any more, 'cause she ain't strong, 'n' we kin take keer of her," proudly.

"You look as if you ought to be taken care of altogether for a while."

Mrs. Wilson studied the pale little face. It had a curious waxen whiteness like a camellia. The eyes were large and wistful, but shining in tender grat.i.tude; the brows were finely pencilled; the hair was growing to more of a chestnut tint, and curled loosely about her forehead. She was strangely pretty now, with the pathetic beauty that touches one's heart.

"Tell yer wot, Dil, us fellers'll chip in an' save up a bit 'n' send youse off to the country like the 'ristocrockery. You don't happen to know of some nice, cheapish place?" and Patsey glanced questioningly at the visitor.

"There are very nice places where it doesn't cost anything. Country people often take children for a fortnight or so. My daughters went to a beautiful seaside place last summer that a rich lady fitted up for clerks and shop-girls. Of course they are older than you, young ladies, but-let me think a bit-"

Mrs. Wilson had never known much besides poverty. Youth, married life, and widowhood had been a struggle. She hired the whole front house, and rented furnished rooms to young men whose incomes would not afford luxurious accommodations. Her sister was in poor health; her two girls were in stores. Her son, who should have been her mainstay and comfort, was in an insane asylum, the result of drink and excesses.

"I can't remember, but I must have heard my girls talking about places where they take 'little mothers,'-the children who tend babies, and give them a lovely holiday in a beautiful country place, where they can run about the green fields and pick flowers and play and sing, or sit about and have nothing to do. I will try to learn something about them."

"I don't b'leve I could go 'way," said Dil, with soft-toned doubtfulness.

"I wish you'd talk her out'n havin' any babies. She ain't no ways strong 'nuff. An' we boys kin take keer o' her. She airns her livin' over 'n'

over agin. She's had 'nuff to do wid kids all her life," protested her champion.

"But Nelly's so sweet, and 'companies me so much," Dil said longingly.

"But you orter be chirkin' up a bit, 'stead er gittin' so thin, an'

faintin'. 'Twas nawful, Dil. You looked jes' 's if youse wos dead."

"It didn't hurt any, Patsey;" and she smiled over to him. "'Twas queer like 's if all the bells in the world was ringin' soft an' sweet, an'

then you went sailin' off. 'Twas worse when I went to ketch my breath afterward. But I'm all right now."

She glanced up smilingly to Mrs. Wilson, who took the soft little hands in hers, for soft they were in spite of the hard work they had done.

Patsey had whisked the table up to the side of the room and brushed up the crumbs. Then he sat down and watched Dil.

Mrs. Wilson said she must go in home, but she would run over in the morning. Patsey expressed his thanks in a frank, boyish manner, and Dil's eyes said at least half of hers.

Then Mrs. Brian and her husband returned, and she stopped to hear what kind of a picnic they had had. Between the three they told all the story and the fright.

"Yes; she must give up all but Nelly, for her mother wouldn't know how to stand it on such a short notice. The child achilly cries for you on Sundays, her mother told me. But we can't have you killed for any babies in the land," said Mrs. Brian emphatically.

"That's the talk!" exclaimed Patsey.