this fire the gal's parents were lost in, was much similar, I should
say. She'd seen her father and mother and the house they lived in, all
swept away together--in a moment, almost. She and her sister escaped,
but were separated in the refugees' camp and she couldn't never find the
other child again. This Marion was old enough to remember about her
Uncle Lem, and where he used to live; so the Relief Committee sent her
here--glad ter git rid of her on sech easy terms, I s'pose. But Lem Aden
had drapped out o' sight before then, and none of us folks knowed where
he'd gone to."

"And that little girl was Mrs. Eland?" Ruth ventured to ask, for the
farmer's remembrances of old times did not interest the little girls.
Posy was heaping their plates with good things to eat. The picnic dinner
in the woods had been forgotten.

"Yes. I reckon so," Mr. Buckham said, in answer to Ruth's inquiry. "She
was kep' to help by some good people around here--just as we took Posy,
marm and me. The child drifted away later. She got some schoolin'. I
guess she went to a hospital and l'arned to be a nurse. Then she married
a man named Eland, but he was sickly. I dunno as she ever did see her
Uncle Lem."

CHAPTER XI

THE STRAWBERRY MARK

Agnes Kenway had never been so uncomfortable in her life as she was
sitting at that pleasant tea-table, at which the invalid, Mrs. Buckham,
presided. And for once her usually cheerful tongue was stilled.

"What's the matter with Aggie?" asked Neale O'Neil. "Lost your tongue?"

"I believe our pretty one is bashful," suggested Mrs. Buckham, smiling
upon the next to the oldest Corner House girl.

"Well, if she is, it's the first time," murmured Neale. But he said no
more. Neale suddenly guessed what was troubling his girl friend, and had
tact enough to keep his lips closed.

Agnes was just as honest a girl at heart as ever breathed. She did not
need the reminder of the farmer's old doggerel to keep her from touching
that which was not hers.

At the time when she had led the raid of the basket ball team and their
friends upon Mr. Buckham's strawberry patch, she had been inspired by
mere thoughtlessness and high spirits. The idea that she was
trespassing--actually stealing--never entered her helter-skelter
thoughts until afterward.

The field was so large, there were so many berries, and she and her
mates took so few, that it really did not seem like stealing to
thoughtless Agnes--no, indeed! It