d Ed kick?"

"No, Ed never kicks. He lets me do anything I please."

Mrs. Wood, with a curious, baffled feeling in her heart, wondered why
she sat there listening to a spoiled child's silly chatter when every
word stung her to the quick, and yet she made no effort to change her
position.

"Well, if my husband would let me adopt a baby, I tell you it wouldn't
take me long to find one."

"Your husband?"

"Yes, s'posing I had one."

"You are but a child. You don't know what you are talking about. You
cannot understand. An adopted baby never can fill the place of one's own
lost one."

"How do you know? You never did it, either. Babies are such cunning
things. No one can help loving them if they've got any kind of a heart.
There is poor little Billy Bolee. He is just as pretty as he can be, but
he's lame. Dr. Dick says one leg will always be shorter than the other,
and he hasn't anyone to take care of him now, nor any home to go to. His
mother was killed in a railroad accident. They are going to ship him off
to the _orphant_ asylum next week, Miss Keith says. If he was only a
girl, Aunt Pen would take him to raise, but they've decided not to have
any boys at Oak Knoll. Guiseppe and Rivers were the only ones ever
there, and now Rivers' mother can take him again, and Aunt Pen has sent
Guiseppe across the ocean to study music. 'F I was bigger I'd adopt
Billy myself. I just love babies. When I grow up I'm going to be mother
of forty girls, like Aunt Pen is."

Amused, shocked, scandalized, the young woman in black listened to the
strange prattle of the child, who spoke as she thought; but when the
busy tongue momentarily ceased its chatter, and Peace sat gazing
thoughtfully out across the green fields where already the grain grew
thick and tall, Mrs. Wood timidly ventured the question, "How old is
Billy Bolee?"

"O, he's a little fellow. Dr. Dick says he prob'ly wasn't more'n two
years old when he first came to the hospital, but he has been here as
much as six months now. He couldn't talk American at first, and Dr.
Kruger had to tell the nurses what he said. But even Dr. Kruger couldn't
understand what his name was, so they took to calling him Billy Bolee.
He's Dutch, you know. They let him run all around the place now, and he
is the dearest little fellow!"

"Where is he now?"

"O, I expect he's in the office. Miss Murch tries to keep him there as
much as she can, so's they will know where he is, I guess. Sometimes