key's, too."

"It don't cost but five cents," said Sarah Sue, and she looked at Bobbie
as if he were not even the dust of the earth. Then she handed me her
list.

"But, Sarah Sue," I said, after I'd read it, "you've got seventy-five
cents down here for your mother and only fifty for your father. Do you
think it's right to make a difference?"

"Yes, I do." And Sarah Sue's big brown eyes were as serious as if 'twere
funeral flowers she was selecting. "You see, it's this way. I love them
both seventy-five cents' worth, but I don't think I ought to give them
the same. Father is just my father by marriage, but Mother's my mother
by bornation. I think mothers ought always to have the most."

I think so, too.

IX

LOVE IS BEST

Christmas is over. I feel like the parlor grate when the fire has gone
out.

But it was a grand Christmas, the grandest we've ever known. It came on
Christmas Day. From the time we got up until we went to bed we were so
happy we forgot we were Charity children; and no matter whatever
happens, we've got one beautiful time to look back on.

Miss Katherine says a beautiful memory is a possession no one can take
from you, and it's one of the best possessions you can have. I think so,
too. She's made all my memories. All. I mean the precious ones.

Everybody in this Orphan Asylum had a present from somebody outside.
Even me, who might as well be that man in the Bible, Melchesey
something, who didn't have beginning or end, or any relations.

I had fourteen from outside. Some I hid, because I didn't want the girls
to know, several not getting more than one, and hardly any more than
three or four.

Those who had the heart to give them didn't have the money, and those
who had the money didn't have the heart. Being so busy with their own
they forgot to remember, and if it hadn't been for Miss Katherine and
her friends this last Christmas would have been like all others.

Her Army brother's wife sent a box full of all sorts of pretty Indian
things, she being in the wild West near the Indians who made them. And
she sent ten dolls, all dressed, for the ten youngest girls.

She is awful busy, having three children and not much money; but Miss
Katherine says busy people make time, and those who have most to do, do
more still.

She sent me the darlingest little bedroom slippers with fur all around
the top. And in them she put a little note that made me cry and cry and
cry, it was so dear and