him." Joe, who did not leave his accustomed walk at once,
finally yielded to the suggestion of a gentle blow from the whip and
broke into a trot.

"Lem'me walk with you," cried the rider on the springs, slipping from
her perch and stepping out beside the buggy. So we journeyed for half a
mile. The horse, under constant urging, jogged along, while the spring
rider and I trotted side by side over the well-made pike. Then Miss
Belle drew rein in front of a small, yellow house.

"Now, out you go," she exclaimed to her young companions. "All out here
but one. Goodbye, dearies. All right, up you get," and in a moment we
were snugly fixed in the buggy for a half hour's ride behind Joe.

"You see those two little girls who got off there," said Miss Belle,
pointing to the house we had just left, "well, they are two of a family
of six--two younger than those. Their mother died last winter, so
naturally I take an interest in them. Their father does his best with
them, but it is a big task for a man to handle alone."

The last child was unloaded by this time, and Miss Belle, settling
herself back comfortably, chatted about her work in a one-room country
school in the Blue Grass belt of Kentucky.

II Going to Work Through the Children

"Maybe there are thirty-five families that my school ought to draw
from," she began. "Six years ago when I took this school some of them
surely did need help. Dearie me! The things they didn't know about
comfort and decency would fix up a whole neighborhood for life. They
wore stockings till they dropped off. Some of the girls put on sweaters
in October, wore them till Christmas, washed them, and then wore them
till spring. You never saw such utterly wretched homes. There was hardly
a window shade in the neighborhood, nor a curtain either. It wasn't that
the women didn't care--they simply didn't know.

"I saw it all," said Miss Belle, nodding her head thoughtfully, "and it
worried me a great deal at first. I just had to get hold of those people
and help them--I had made up my mind to that. Impatience wouldn't do,
though, so I said to myself, 'Now, my dear, don't you be in any hurry.
You can't do anything with the old folks, they're too proud. If you
succeed at all it's got to be through the children.' So I just waited,
keeping my eyes open, and teaching school all of the while, until, the
first thing I knew, the way opened up--you never would guess how--it was
through biscuits.["]

III B