if any one became wakeful during the night and cried, she
would pull the string and set its hammock swinging, and soon the little
one was slumbering again. Sometimes she had to look after half a dozen
or more at once, and two or three hammocks would be going at the same
time.

With many she had a hard struggle, but never grudged any trouble to make
them well. She would come home late after a long day's tramp in the
forest, tired and hungry and sleepy, and send Janie to bed and stay up
herself and tend the sick and suffering ones. You can fancy her there
alone in the mud-house in the forest in the quiet hours of the night,
bending over a wasted form, watching the pain in its eyes with tears in
her own, giving it medicine, soothing it, and seeking to make it comfy,
and beside her the pale dark shape of Death, with its grim smile,
waiting for another victim.

Ma sometimes won the child from the grave; sometimes she failed, and
then she was very sad. But she could not help it. The people believed
that sickness was caused by evil spirits, and most of the children that
came to her were already dying and beyond her love and skill. When they
closed their eyes she dressed them in a pinafore and put them in a box
covered with white flowers, and buried them in her children's cemetery.

Some women who called at Ma's yard were gossiping about the day's
marketing, when one said it was funny that a baby should live after
being five days and six nights in the bush.

"What's that?" demanded Ma. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing, Ma. The girl baby that was thrown away because the mother is
dead is still alive, for we heard her crying as we came along this
morning."

Ma jumped up and went flying to the spot. She found the waif on some
waste ground, terribly thin and eaten by insects and crying feebly.
Taking her home Ma laid her in a big calabash and brooded over her with
tender care, and by and by she recovered, and became healthy and pretty.
"The child of wonder," the people called her; but Ma named her Mary,
after herself, and she became one of her house-children, and stayed
with her until she married.

Twins gave Ma the sorest time. The people believed that all sorts of
troubles would come to them if these were allowed to live. Ma laughed at
them.

"Twins are just like other children," she said; "and if only you let
them grow up you will see for yourselves that there is no difference.
Look at my bonnie Janie--she is a twin."