y, only
Philip and Geordie remain, and gardening is at a standstill. All day
yesterday and to-day I have thought of the runaways, and wondered if
there is any way of making them stay and take advantage of their
opportunities. Our young manual-training teacher, and only man, lives at
the cottage with the dozen small boys; but, being a man, probably he
cannot give them a home feeling, and get them rooted. Only a woman could
do that. If I had the courage and cheerfulness, I would go over there
and live with those little boys and try to make them feel at home. But
it is useless to think of such a thing,--my sadness would repel
them,--they would run away faster than ever.

_Monday Night._

The heads said to me this morning, "We shall give up trying to keep
little boys in the school,--it is useless, though we need them almost as
much as they need us. If there were just some one who loves children to
stay there and take a real interest in them, they might be satisfied to
remain."

"I love children," I said, "but I would not think of inflicting myself
upon them,--I am not cheerful enough."

"Cheerful!" they exclaimed, "why, everybody is cheerful here,--no time
for anything else! Suppose you try it!"

"I really couldn't think of it," I replied; but, fifteen minutes later,
under the spell of their optimism, I was moving over from the big house
to the small boys' cottage, from which the manual-training teacher was
departing to join the big boys over the workshop.

This small cottage is the building in which the work began here five
years ago. It is separated from the rest of the school-grounds by a
small branch; in its back yard is the wash-house, and beyond this the
stable lot slopes down to Perilous Creek. There are four comfortable
rooms, neatly papered with magazine pages,--a sitting-room, two bedrooms
for the boys, and one for me. The woodwork in mine being battered, I
sent Philip down to the nearby village for paint. He returned with a
rich, rosy red, and began laying it on my mantelpiece with gusto, while
Geordie Yonts put shelves in a goods-box for my bureau. Never have I
seen a small chunk of a boy with such a large, ingratiating smile as
Geordie's.

[Illustration: "'Here is Keats back again,--he has got to stay with you
women and get l'arning if it kills him dead!'"]

In the midst I heard a call from the road, and saw at the gate a nag
bearing a woman and two small boys. "Here is Keats back again,--he ha