aid and went
away giggling a girl's shrill giggle and muttering between her
giggles: "Don't know what to do for a bee sting. Hee-hee!"

For a whole minute after the queer old woman had gone Elliott stood
there, staring down at the spatter of mud on the steps, dismay and
wrath in her heart. Then, because she didn't know anything else to do
and because Johnny's screams had redoubled, she stooped, and with
gingerly care picked up the lump of black mud and went over to the
boy. Mud couldn't hurt him, she thought, put on outside; it certainly
couldn't hurt him, but could it help?

She sat down on the floor and lifted the little swollen fist and held
the cool mud on it, neither noticing nor caring that some trickled
down on her own skirt. She sat there a long time, or so it seemed,
while Johnny's yells sank to long-drawn sobs and then ceased
altogether as he snuggled forgivingly against her arm. And in her
heart was a great shame and an aching feeling of inadequacy and
failure. Elliott Cameron had never known so bitter a five minutes. All
her pride and self-sufficiency were gone. What was she good for in a
practical emergency? Just nothing at all. She didn't know even the
commonest things, not the commonest.

"It must have been Witless Sue," said Aunt Jessica, late that
afternoon, when Elliott told her the story. "She is a half-witted old
soul who wanders about digging herbs in summer and lives on the town
farm in winter. There's no harm in her."

"Half-witted!" said Elliott. "She knew more than I did."

"You have not had the opportunity to learn."

"That didn't make it any better for Johnny. Laura knows all those
things, doesn't she? And Trudy, too?"

"I think they know what to do in the simpler emergencies of life."

"I wish I did. I took a first-aid course, but it didn't have stings in
it, not as far as we'd gone when I came away. We were taught bandaging
and using splints and things like that."

"Very useful knowledge."

"But Johnny got stung," said Elliott, as though nothing mattered
beyond that fact. "Do you think you could teach me things, now and
then, Aunt Jessica? the things Laura and Trudy know?"

"Surely," said Aunt Jessica, "and very gladly. There are things that
you could teach Laura and Trudy, too. Don't forget that entirely."

"Could I? Useful things?" She asked the question with humility.

"Very useful things in certain kinds of emergency. What did Mrs.
Gordon do for Johnny when she got home?"