"Ain't got any mother," she said, "just Vicky. She lets me."

"Poor little thing!" said Louise again, and handed her the veal loaf.

The child began to eat everything at once, with an eagerness which made it certain she had told the truth, at least, about being hungry.

"What's your name, kiddie? You'll tell me, won't you?" asked Billy, when she seemed to have taken the edge off her appet.i.te. He bent down to her with a sympathetic expression which he possessed at times, and which-or something about him-won the hearts of most small children he had dealings with.

"Sandy," she said through large mouthfuls.

"Sandy what?" inquired Louise.

"Sandy Mitch.e.l.l. Gimme more cake?"

As she had had two large slices, it was thought best not to give her any more.

"Mercy, no!" said Winona, as Louise was cutting it, in spite of prudence. "Not another bit. We don't want her to die on our hands. You'd better come over here by the spring, dear, and let me wash your hands."

Sandy got up immediately, with the placid remark, "It might-a given me a pain, anyway," and allowed her hands to be washed, and dried on a fresh paper napkin.

"Poor little cowed thing!" exclaimed Louise at this instant obedience.

"Sandy, dear, won't your people be worried about you?"

"Nope," said Sandy.

"And where do you live?"

"Way, way off," she said. "We just comed. I'll show you to-morrow."

"Poor little dear thing!" said Louise. "How pretty she is! Winnie, I've a good mind to adopt her."

"Having only five at home," murmured Tom.

"From the way she talks her people wouldn't care," said Louise. "Maybe Camp Karonya could take care of her. We will till we go back, anyway."

"She must belong to one of those poor families along the west branch,"

said Tom. "Three miles away, and we can't possibly get there by canoeing, because we'd have to paddle back seven miles before we could paddle over the three. Who's going to walk three miles and a half by the thermometer to take the lady home? Don't all speak at once."

"Do you live up there?" Louise asked her. "And does your father drink?"

"Yep," said Sandy. "Favver? Course he dwinks. Evvybody dwinks."

"Think of being brought up to think things like that," said Louise.

"Don't you think," suggested Winona, "that we'd better take her back to camp? I don't know the way to the place Tom talks about, and maybe it would be best for Mrs. Bryan to take her anyway, if they do drink."

"Good idea," said everybody. Sandy herself seemed pleased, and attached herself to them as readily as a stray puppy would have done. They cleared up leisurely, then got back into the canoe, taking the child in, too. It was rather a close fit, though it was an eighteen-foot canoe, but they managed it. She was no more trouble than Puppums would have been-Puppums, fortunately, had been left with Florence. They had a good day with the fishing, and trailed into Camp Karonya at six with fish for breakfast; and Sandy.

"Good luck!" were Tom's parting words. "We'll come to-morrow and help you take her back, if you like."

"You needn't bother," said his sister. "We'll take the faithful rowboat."

"We aren't going to take her back!" insisted Louise. "I'm going to adopt her. Sandy, wouldn't you like to live with me? _I'd_ dress you in nice clothes and give you a dolly."

"An' five cents?" demanded Sandy, "An' things to eat?"

"Oh, the poor baby!" said Louise. "She's had to think about money and food and grown-up things like the poor little children you read about in the pamphlets. Yes, indeed, you shall, Sandy."

"She looks well-fed," said Tom. "Well, good luck. Don't get a reputation for collecting them-you mayn't be able to dispose of orphans as easily as you can kittens."

They parted, and Louise carried Sandy into camp. They arrived as supper was about ready. The Blue Birds carried the fish off to the ice-box (it was literally a box, a very ingenious arrangement of sawdust and wood which had meant a bead for Elizabeth) and the rest cl.u.s.tered about Louise's treasure-trove.

"Better find out if she really needs adopting," advised Marie as they sat around the long table, and Sandy exercised an appet.i.te as large as her noon one.

"With a drunken father, and no mother, and looking like that?" fired up Louise. "I'm going to wash her after supper."

There seemed no connection between washing her and adopting her, but there evidently was to Louise.

"Want me to help?" offered Winona. "It ought to be more fun than washing Puppums."

"I hope she won't howl and try to climb over the side of the tub, the way he does," said Louise. "Yes, thank you, I'd love to be helped."

A warm bath in a foot-tub, following directly on a large meal of corn fritters, baked potatoes and huckle-berries, ought nearly to have killed Sandy, but it didn't.

"I never dreamed you meant to do more than wash her face and hands,"

protested Marie, who, as the guardian of the Blue Birds, had ideas about such things. But it was too late. Anyway, there was no visible effect.

Sandy awakened next morning, well, happy, and still hungry. They had given her Nataly's bunk with Mrs. Bryan. Helen bunked with Elizabeth, because Nataly said the girls tossed, and Mrs. Bryan didn't.

While Sandy slept Louise and Winona were busy. Louise woke Winona at five, and they heated water, filled the charcoal-iron, and washed and ironed and mended Sandy's underclothes. While Louise darned Sandy's socks, Winona ironed the garments dry. Then they foraged about the store-shed, which was a warm place at that time of year even in the early morning, and found a white dress of Florence's which Winona thought she had remembered bringing.

When found it proved much too large for Sandy, but Louise was still enthusiastic, and took it up with such good will that two of the tucks she put in had to be ripped out again when they came to dress Sandy in it. They polished the small strapped shoes the child had taken off, sewed the b.u.t.ton of each on more firmly, and decided that they looked almost new.

Then Winona went back to awaken her own little sister. When she returned to Louise's tent she found her friend had finished giving Sandy another bath. She was just dressing her.

"I don't believe this poor little thing knows what a thorough bath is,"

she greeted Winona over the child's head.

"Yes, I do, too," said Sandy. "But I had one last night, an' you've been an' given me anuvver now!"

"I think I'll box her hair, too," went on Louise. "It is getting rather common now, but she has so much, and it's so untidy, that it would really be the best thing even if I didn't keep her."

"I wouldn't do her hair till you're sure we're going to keep her,"

objected Winona. "Her people mightn't like it."

"A dissipated father and a poor little overworked elder sister-Vicky is your sister, isn't she, Sandy?-and a home where they don't even wash or feed her? Poor people haven't time to take care of hair like this.

Anyway, they haven't done it, for it was tangled awfully," she finished conclusively.

"But it's so pretty!" protested Winona. "Just look at it, nearly to her waist, and thick and curly, and such a lovely gold color!"

"So much the worse for her health," said Louise as promptly as Red-Riding-Hood's wolf. "Sandy, wouldn't you like your hair cut nice and short, so it wouldn't get tangled any more?"