was a
sister, a little girl of ten, who used to live with the Cogswells over
at East Point. After Jord died, some rich folks saw her and was so
struck with her good looks that they took her away with them. I don't
know what become of her, and I don't care. Go and bring the cows up."

When Freda went to bed that night her mind was made up. She would
adopt Jordan Slade's grave.

Thereafter, Freda spent her few precious spare-time moments in the
graveyard. She clipped the blueberry shrubs and long, tangled grasses
from the grave with a pair of rusty old shears that blistered her
little brown hands badly. She brought ferns from the woods to plant
about it. She begged a root of heliotrope from Nan Gray, a clump of
day lilies from Katie Morris, a rosebush slip from Nellie Bell, some
pansy seed from old Mrs. Bennett, and a geranium shoot from Minnie
Hutchinson's big sister. She planted, weeded and watered faithfully,
and her efforts were rewarded. "Her" grave soon looked as nice as any
in the graveyard.

Nobody but Freda knew about it. The poplar growth concealed the corner
from sight, and everybody had quite forgotten poor, disreputable
Jordan Slade's grave. At least, it seemed as if everybody had. But one
evening, when Freda slipped down to the graveyard with a little can
of water and rounded the corner of the poplars, she saw a lady
standing by the grave--a strange lady dressed in black, with the
loveliest face Freda had ever seen, and tears in her eyes.

The lady gave a little start when she saw Freda with her can of water.

"Can you tell me who has been looking after this grave?" she said.

"It--it was I," faltered Freda, wondering if the lady would be angry
with her. "Pleas'm, it was I, but I didn't mean any harm. All the
other little girls had a grave, and I hadn't any, so I just adopted
this one."

"Did you know whose it was?" asked the lady gently.

"Yes'm--Jordan Slade's. Mrs. Wilson told me."

"Jordan Slade was my brother," said the lady. "He went sadly astray,
but he was not all bad. He was weak and too easily influenced. But
whatever his faults, he was good and kind--oh! so good and kind--to me
when I was a child. I loved him with all my heart. It has always been
my wish to come back and visit his grave, but I have never been able
to come, my home has been so far away. I expected to find it
neglected. I cannot tell you how pleased and touched I am to find it
kept so beautifully. Thank you over and over