e me think of Papa Jack's story
about the old witch: 'she ran, she flew, she ran, she flew!' We all told
the old huckstah we'd help him catch them and that's why we got so
dirty."

[Illustration: "'BUT WE CAUGHT THE CHICKENS AND BROUGHT THEM BACK.'"]

"Oh, such a chase!" added Joyce. "Through barb-wire fences, over
ploughed fields and into blackberry briers. That is how we got so
scratched and torn. But we caught the chickens, and brought them
back, with feathers flying, and with them squawking at the tops of their
voices."

"What fun it must have been!" said Betty. "I wish I could have seen you
then, and I wish I could see you now. You must be wrecks."

"They are not pretty sights, I can assure you," said Mrs. Sherman,
laughing in spite of her disapproval. "I'm astonished that you would
make such a commotion on a public road, and I'm afraid I would have to
lecture you a little if I were not sure that you would never do it
again. Run along now and make yourselves presentable for lunch, and
first thing you do, look in your mirrors. You'll not be charmed, I'm
sure."

"One little, two little, three little Indians," sang Betty, as they
skipped out of the room, hand in hand, and Joyce whispered in the hall,
"How can she be so cheerful? She's the bravest little thing I ever saw."

They learned the secret of her cheerfulness next time they went to her
room. She turned to them with a wistful little smile, sadder, somehow,
than tears, saying, "Godmother has helped me to find some stars in my
long night, girls. She told me about Milton. I didn't know before that
he was blind when he wrote 'Paradise Lost.' And she told me about Fanny
Crosby, too, the blind hymnwriter, whose hymns have helped so many
people and are sung all over the world.

"I've made up my mind that if the doctor can't save my sight I'll do as
they did. It's like dropping the curtains on the outside darkness when
night comes on, godmother says, and turning up the lights and stirring
the fire, and making it so bright and cheerful and sweet inside that you
forget how dark it is outdoors.

"And maybe if I can do that, and think all the time about the beautiful
things I have seen and read, I can make up stories some day as they did
their poems and hymns. I will write fairy tales that the children will
love to listen to and ask to hear, over and over again. I know I can do
it, for the ones I've made for Davy he likes best of all. I'd never hope
to write stori