e work-worn hand partly
shading her face. Ruth knew instinctively that she must have been weeping
in the night. In the early morning dawn she drooped on the hard little
cot in a crumpled heap, and the girl's heart ached for her sorrow.

Ruth stole into the kitchen to ask for water to wash her face:

"I'm sorry," said the pleasant-faced woman who was making coffee and
frying bacon, "but the wash basins are all gone; we've had so many folks
come in. But you can have this pail. I just got this water for myself and
I'll let you have it and I'll get some more. You see, the water pipes
aren't put in the building yet and we have to go down the road quite a
piece to get any. This is all there was left last night."

She handed Ruth a two-gallon galvanized tin bucket containing a couple of
inches of water, obviously clean, and added a brief towel to the toilet
arrangements.

Ruth beat a hasty retreat back to the shelter of the piano with her
collection, fearing lest mirth would get the better of her. She could not
help thinking how her aunt would look if she could see her washing her
face in this pittance of water in the bottom of the great big bucket.

But Ruth Macdonald was adaptable in spite of her upbringing. She managed
to make a most pleasing toilet in spite of the paucity of water, and then
went back to the kitchen with the bucket.

"If you will show me where you get the water I'll go for some more," she
offered, anxious for an excuse to get out and explore the track.

The woman in the kitchen was not abashed at the offer. She accepted the
suggestion as a matter of course, taking for granted the same helpful
spirit that seemed to pervade all the people around the place. It did not
seem to strike her as anything strange that this young woman should be
willing to go for water. She was not giving attention to details like
clothes and handbags, and neither wealth nor social station belonged to
her scheme of life. So she smilingly gave the directions to the pump and
went on breaking nice brown eggs into a big yellow bowl. Ruth wished she
could stay and watch, it looked so interesting.

She took the pail and slipped out the back door, but before she went in
search of water she hurried down to the railroad track and scanned it for
several rods either way, carefully examining each bit of paper, her
breath held in suspense as she turned over an envelope or scrap of paper,
lest it might bear his name. At last with a glad look