a whisper, "Put your head down close, Miss Laura."

She turned out the light and as she dropped down beside the bed, a small
arm slipped around her neck and a husky little voice whispered in her
ear, "It's 'cause I'm 'fraid inside that I mustn't have the light left."
Another gulp. "Mother--she said you wasn't a coward just 'cause you was
'fraid inside, but only when you let the 'fraid get out into the things
you _do_. She said lots of brave men were 'fraid inside sometimes.
An'--an' she said I mustn't ever be a coward nor tell lies, an' I
promised--cross my heart--I wouldn't. So that's why, Miss Laura."

Again Laura longed to hug the little fellow and kiss him as his mother
would have done, but she said only,

"Yes, Jim, I quite understand now, and I know you will never be a
coward. Here's the bell, you know. You can press the button if you want
anything, and the maid sleeps in the next room. She'll be up in a few
minutes."

"Yes'm." A little drowsiness was creeping into Jim's voice already.

"Good-night, dear."

"Good-night," Jim murmured and Laura went away, but she left the door
open into the lighted hall, and when she slipped back a little later the
boy was asleep.

When the other Camp Fire Girls learned about "Miss Laura's boy" they
were all interested in him, and begged that he might come to the next
Council meeting. Jim was sitting up most of the day now, and his
wheelchair was rolled into the room after all the girls had come. He was
dressed and sat up very straight, but though he was much better, his
face was still very thin and white.

"All but one of my girls are here to-night, Jim," Miss Laura told him.
"I'm going to introduce you to them and see how many of the names you
can remember."

"Why isn't that other one here?" he demanded.

"She couldn't come this time," Laura said with a glance at Olga, sitting
grave and silent a little apart from the others.

The girls gathered about the wheelchair and Jim held out his hand to
each one as Laura mentioned her name. His gray eyes searched each face,
but he said nothing until Lena Barton flung him a careless nod and would
have passed on, but he caught her hand and laughed up into the freckled
face with the bunch of red frizzes puffed out on each side in the
"latest moment" fashion.

"Hello, Carrots," he called in the tone of jovial good-fellowship, "I
like you, 'cause you look like a fellow I used to sit with in school.
His name was Barton too--Jo B