and squatting on her
heels in the wet sand, waited until a small school swam incautiously
close to the bank, and scooped suddenly, with a great splash. She
caught three tiny, speckled fish the length of her little finger, and
she let the half-full pail rest in the shallow stream while she watched
the fry swimming excitedly round and round within.

There was no great fun in that. Billy Louise could catch baby trout in
a pail at home, from the waters of the Wolverine, whenever she liked.
Many a time she had kept them in a big bottle until she tired of
watching them, or they died because she forgot to change the water
often enough. She could not get even a languid enjoyment out of them
now, because she could not for a minute forget that she had promised to
wash Marthy's dishes--and Marthy always had so many dirty dishes! And
Marthy's dishpan was so greasy! Billy Louise gave a little shudder
when she thought of it.

"I wish her little girl hadn't died," she said, her mind swinging from
effect back to cause. "I could play with her. And she'd wash the
dishes herself. I'm going to name my new little pig Minervy. I wish
she hadn't died. I'd show her my little pig, if Marthy'd let her come
over to our place. We could both ride on old Badger; Minervy could
ride behind me, and we'd go places together." Billy Louise
meditatively stirred up the baby trout with a forefinger. "We'd go up
the canyon and have the caves for our play-houses. Minervy could have
the secret cave away up the hill, and I'd have the other one across
from it; and we'd have flags and wigwag messages like daddy tells about
in the war. And we'd play the rabbits are Injuns, and the coyotes are
big-Injun-chiefs sneaking down to see if the forts are watching. And
whichever seen a coyote first would wigwag to the other one..." A baby
trout, taking advantage of the pail tipping in the current, gave a flip
over the edge and interrupted Billy Louise's fancies. She gave the
pail a tilt and spilled out the other two fish. Then she filled it as
full as she could carry and started back to pay the price of her
sympathy.

"I don't see what Minervy had to go and die for!" she complained,
dodging a low-hanging branch of bloom-laden lilac. "She could wash the
dishes and I'd wipe 'em--and I s'pose there ain't a clean dish-towel in
the house, either! Marthy's an awful slack housekeeper."

Billy Louise, being a young person with a conscience--of a sort--wash