ou can see how the neighborhood would
fairly buzz with talk about her.

As for Maida--with all this newness of friend-making and out-of-doors
games, it is not to be wondered that her head was a jumble at the
end of each day. In that delicious, dozy interval before she fell
asleep at night, all kinds of pretty pictures seemed to paint
themselves on her eyelids.

Now it was Rose-Red swaying like a great overgrown scarlet flower
from the bars of a lamp-post. Now it was Dicky hoisting himself
along on his crutches, his face alight with his radiant smile. Now
it was a line of laughing, rosy-cheeked children, as long as the
tail of a kite, pelting to goal at the magic cry "Liberty poles are
bending!" Or it was a group of little girls, setting out rows and
rows of bright-colored paper-dolls among the shadows of one of the
deep old doorways. But always in a few moments came the sweetest
kind of sleep. And always through her dreams flowed the plaintive
music of "Go in and out the windows." Often she seemed to wake in
the morning to the Clarion cry, "Hoist the sail!"

It did not seem to Maida that the days were long enough to do all
the things she wanted to do.

CHAPTER VI: TWO CALLS

One morning, Laura Lathrop came bustling importantly into the shop.
"Good morning, Maida," she said; "you may come over to my house this
afternoon and play with me if you'd like."

"Thank you, Laura," Maida answered. To anybody else, she would have
added, "I shall be delighted to come." But to Laura, she only said,
"It is kind of you to ask me."

"From about two until four," Laura went on in her most superior
tone. "I suppose you can't get off for much longer than that."

"Granny is always willing to wait on customers if I want to play,"
Maida explained, "but I think she would not want me to stay longer
than that, anyway."

"Very well, then. Shall we say at two?" Laura said this with a very
grown-up air. Maida knew that she was imitating her mother.

Laura had scarcely left when Dicky appeared, swinging between his
crutches. "Maida," he said, "I want you to come over to-morrow
afternoon and see my place. You've not seen Delia yet and there's a
whole lot of things I want to show you. I'm going to clean house
to-day so's I'll be all ready for you to-morrow."

"Oh, thank you," Maida said. The sparkle that always meant delight
came into her face. "I shall be delighted. I've always wanted to go
over and se