hey've been sorting out
today."

"Move?" the boy interrupted, as the realization of what she was saying
dawned upon him. "Who says we're going to move? What do you mean? They
never told me!"

"I heard Dad tell Aunt Maria we would leave the last of the week for the
place where he has just come from, and they have been packing all the
afternoon."

Tom was silent and in the darkness Tabitha could not see his face, but
she seemed to understand how he felt about it, and after a moment she
slipped a thorn-scratched little hand into his, as she said,

"You don't like it, do you, Tommy? I'm sorry, too. I wanted to stay
here. The people who have moved in the big red house by the pond have
two of the nicest children. They are cousins and have the prettiest
names--Rosalie Meywood and Rosslyn Fennimore--and they are almost my
age. I hated to tell them my name, but they didn't laugh a bit, Tom.
They didn't even _look_ queer at each other, and Rosslyn said they had a
kitten they called Tabby and it was the smartest cat they ever saw. They
have taught it tricks and Rosalie invited me over to see it. I met them
down in the blackberry patch. They were picking just for fun and they
helped me a little--not much, 'cause they were so slow. Neither of them
knows how to pick berries and they took only those out in sight, while
the very best ones are most always way in under the vines. We are all in
the same classes in school and we planned such nice times together when
lessons begin again. I never get to knowing any nice people but we move
away. Do you s'pose we will ever have any friends, Tom?"

Tom's thoughts were very busy, and he only half heard the child's lively
chatter. In the dim long ago, when he was only six years old, one
morning a white-aproned woman with a gentle face had called him to her
and led him into a room where lay his own dear mother with a little
white bundle on her arm, and when the covers were turned down he had
looked into a tiny, red, wrinkled face with blinking, black eyes and
was told that this was a baby sister come to be a playmate for him. Then
the nurse went away and left them for a little while and his mother
talked to him in her soft voice that he could remember best in the
little lullaby she used to sing to him:

"I'm tired now, and sleepy, too,
Come put me in my little bed."

She had laid the baby's little fisting hands into his and told him that
he must always take good care of little si