on't suppose I can do much for our Camp Fire baby," she told herself,
"but there's Molly. Maybe I can do more for her and--and for Sadie and
the boys--perhaps."

IX

JIM

In the first ward of the Children's Hospital the next afternoon, No. 20
lay very still--strangely still for a nine-year-old boy--watching the
door. He had watched it all day, although he knew that visitors' hours
were from two to four, and none would be admitted earlier. No. 18 in the
next cot asked him a question once, but No. 20 only shook his head
wearily. Some of the children had books and games, but they soon tired
of them, and lay idly staring about the long, sunny room, or looking out
at the sky and the trees, or watching the door. Sometimes mothers or
fathers came through that door, and if you hadn't any of your own, at
any rate you could look at those that came to see other fellows, and
sometimes these mothers had a word or a smile for others as well as
their own boys. No. 20, however, didn't want any other fellow's mother
to smile down at him--no indeed, that was the last thing in the world he
wanted--yet. He wished sometimes, just for a moment, that there weren't
any mothers to come, since the _one_ could never come to him again. But
they did come and smile at him, and pat his head--these mothers of the
other boys--came drawn by the hungry longing in his eyes--and he set his
teeth and clinched his hands under the bedclothes, and when they went
away gulped down the great lump that always jumped into his throat, all
in a minute--but he never cried. One day when a kind-hearted nurse asked
him about his mother, he bore her questioning as long as he could, and
then he struck at her fiercely and slipped right down under the
bedclothes where nobody could see him; but he didn't cry, though he
shook and shook for a long time after she went away.

But--Miss Laura--she was different. She didn't kiss him, nor pat him,
nor ask fool questions. She just talked to him--well, the right way. And
she'd promised to come again to-day. Maybe she'd forget though; people
did forget things they'd promised--only somehow, she didn't look like
the forgetting kind. And she was awful pretty--most the prettiest lady
he had ever seen. But hospital hours were so dreadfully long! Seemed
like a hundred hours since breakfast. Ah! He lifted his head and looked
eagerly towards the door--somebody was coming in. O, only some other
fellow's mother. He dropped down again