Ma, what's an oliver, d'ye think?"
"Ask Camilla," Mrs. Watson said, somewhat alarmed at
these hygienic problems. "Camilla is grand at explaining
Mrs. Francis's quare ways."
Pearl's brown eyes were full of worry.
"It's hard to git time to be healthy, ma," she said; "we
should keep the kittle bilin' all the time, she says, to
keep the humanity in the air--Oh, I wish she hadn't a
told me, I never thought atin' hurt anyone, but she says
lots of things that taste good is black pison. Isn't it
quare, ma, the Lord put such poor works in us and us not
there at the time to raise a hand."
They sewed in silence for a few minutes.
Then Pearl said: "Let us go to bed now, ma, me eyes are
shuttin'. I'll go back to-morrow and ask Camilla about
the 'oliver.'"
CHAPTER IV
THE BAND OF HOPE
Mary Barner had learned the lesson early that the only
easing of her own pain was in helping others to bear
theirs, and so it came about that there was perhaps no
one in Millford more beloved than she. Perhaps it was
the memory of her own lost childhood that caused her
heart to go out in love and sympathy to every little boy
and girl in the village.
Their joys were hers; their sorrows also. She took slivers
from little fingers with great skill, beguiling the owners
thereof with wonderful songs and stories. She piloted
weary little plodders through pages of "homework." She
mended torn "pinnies" so that even vigilant mothers never
knew that their little girls had jumped the fence at all.
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