ruined--and how we are ever goin' to get through the winter I declare I
can't tell!"

"Have you a husband? And, by the way, hadn't you better tell me your
name?" said Eleanor.

"My husband's dead--been dead nearly two years," said the woman. "I'm
Sarah Pratt. This here's my husband's sister, Ann."

"Well, Mrs. Pratt, we'll have to see if we can't think of some way of
making up for all this loss," said Eleanor, after she had told the woman
her own name, and introduced the girls of the Camp Fire. "Why--just a
minute, now! You have cows, haven't you? Plenty of them? Do they give
good milk?"

"Best there is," said the woman. "My husband, he was a crank for buyin'
fine cattle. I used to tell him he was wastin' his money, but he would
do it. Same way with the chickens."

"Then you sold the milk, I suppose?"

"Yes, ma'am, and we didn't get no more for it from the creamery than the
farmers who had just the ornery cows."

"Well, I've got an idea already. I'm going back to Cranford as soon as
we've had dinner to see if it will work out. I suppose that's your son?"

She looked with a smile at the awkward, embarrassed boy who had so
little to say for himself.

"Well, while the girls fix you up some shelters where you can sleep
to-night, if you stay here, I'm going to ask you to let him drive me
into Cranford. I want to do some telephoning--and I think I'll have
good news for you when I come back."

Strangely enough, Mrs. Pratt made no objection to this plan. Once she
had begun to yield to the charm of Eleanor's manner, and to believe that
the Camp Fire Girls meant really to help and were not merely stopping
out of idle curiosity, she recovered her natural manner, which turned
out to be sweet and cheerful enough, and she also began to look on
things with brighter eyes.

"Makes no difference whether you have good news or not, my dear," she
said to Eleanor. "You've done us a sight of good already. Waked me up
an' made me see that it's wrong to sit down and cry when it's a time to
be up an' doin'."

"Oh, you wouldn't have stayed in the dumps very long," said Eleanor,
cheerfully. "Perhaps we got you started a little bit sooner, but I can
see that you're not the sort to stay discouraged very long."

Then, while a few of the girls, with the aid of the Pratt children,
washed dishes and cleared up after the meal, Eleanor took aside Margery
and some of the stronger girls, like Bessie and Dolly, to show them what
she wanted