all sorts of odds and ends that had been left behind as worthless at the
flitting.

There was an old straw bonnet with a pair of dirty strings, and
therewith the damsel elected to adorn the tousled head, which evidenced
but slight acquaintance with comb or brush. She could not find any
feminine garments to please her fancy, but there was a boy's jacket, out
at elbows and ragged round the edges, which she proudly donned, and as a
finishing touch she popped her long slim legs, old shoes and all, into a
worn-out pair of man's top-boots that reached to her knees.

"I just wish Mawm Mason had lef' a lookin'-glass behin', so's I could
see how I look. My! wouldn't she whack me if she seen me with this
bonnet on!" The child smiled broadly as she continued her confidential
address to the other valueless things left behind. "I allays knowed she
warn't my own mother, an' I'm glad Pete nor Matty aint my own brother
nor sister neither. I'd like him to see me in his jacket!"

She pulled the coat across her narrow little chest to where it met in
the days when there were buttons on it, and marched up and down the
room, making as much noise as possible with the big boots.

This killing of time was all very well while the daylight lasted and the
sun warmed up the frosty November air, but when the darkness began to
assert itself once more the small waif did not feel so contented.

"There aint no use goin' over to Mis' Morgan's. She don't want me no
more'n Mis' Mason did. I guess I'll sleep upstairs to-night with some o'
them things over me. I'll be warm anyhow."

In the middle of the front bedroom she heaped up all the _debris_ and
crawled beneath it. A fantastic pile it seemed to the moon when he
looked in after the rain had stopped, the childish head resting on the
cover of an old bandbox at one side and a pair of man's boots sticking
out at the other.

The last scrap of bread was finished next day, and the two potatoes
picked up in the yard proved uneatable without the softening influence
of fire, so there was nothing for it but Mrs. Morgan's. After sunset,
when the rapidly falling temperature and the heavy bank of clouds in the
west gave warning of a snow-storm, the little girl, still wearing the
old bonnet, boy's jacket, and man's boots, left the only home she could
remember, and made her way slowly over the hard rough fields and snake
fences to the next farmhouse.

Mrs. Morgan was running in from the barn with a shawl over h