of
old carpet rags stood near the little bed. She dragged it into the
farthest corner. She tried to open the window, but it was nailed fast.

Then a determined look shone in her eyes. She went quickly down the
little ladder.

"Please ma'am," she said going over to Mrs. Motherwell, "I can't sleep
up there. It is full of diseases and microscopes."

"It's what?" Mrs. Motherwell almost screamed. She was in the pantry
making pies.

"It has old air in it," Pearl said, "and it will give me the fever."

Mrs. Motherwell glared at the little girl. She forgot all about the
frying pan.

"Good gracious!" she said. "It's a queer thing if hired help are going
to dictate where they are going to sleep. Maybe you'd like a bed set up
for you in the parlour!"

"Not if the windies ain't open," Pearl declared stoutly.

"Well they ain't; there hasn't been a window open in this house since
it was built, and there isn't going to be, letting in dust and flies."

Pearl gasped. What would Mrs. Francis say to that?

"It's in yer graves ye ought to be then, ma'am," she said with honest
conviction. "Mrs. Francis told me never to sleep in a room with the
windies all down, and I as good as promised I wouldn't. Can't we open
that wee windy, ma'am?"

Mrs. Motherwell was tired, unutterably tired, not with that day's work
alone, but with the days and years that had passed away in gray
dreariness; the past barren and bleak, the future bringing only visions
of heavier burdens. She was tired and perhaps that is why she became
angry.

"You go straight to your bed," she said, with her mouth hard and her
eyes glinting like cold flint, "and none of your nonsense, or you can
go straight back to town."

When Pearl again reached the little stifling room, she fell on her
knees and prayed.

"Dear God," she said, "there's gurms here as thick as hair on a dog's
back, and You and me know it, even if she don't. I don't know what to
do, dear Lord--the windy is nelt down. Keep the gurms from gittin' into
me, dear Lord. Do ye mind how poor Jeremiah was let down into the mire
and ye tuk care o' him, didn't ye? Take care o' me, dear Lord. Poor ma
has enough to do widout me comin' home clutterin' up the house wid
sickness. Keep yer eye on Danny if ye can at all, at all. He's awful
stirrin'. I'll try to git the windy riz to-morrow by hook or crook, so
mebbe it's only to-night ye'll have to watch the gurms. Amen."

Pearl braided her hair into two little pigta