ds so black and
threatening that the workmen scattered along the tracks, busy with pick
and shovel, began to throw down their tools and make for the nearest
shelter. One man, with a coat over his head to protect him from the
already falling drops hurried past Glory, where she stood holding Bonny
Angel, and advised:

"Best not tarry, children, but scud for home. There's a terrible storm
coming." But he did not stop to see that they followed his advice nor
inquire if any home they had.

Poor Glory's heart sank. She was not afraid of any storm for herself
though she had never heard wind roar and wail as this did now, but how
could she bear to have her "Guardian" suffer. Even Meg's healthy
youngsters sometimes had croup and frightened their mother "outen her
seventy senses," and the croup usually followed a prolonged playing in
flooded gutters during a rain storm.

"I must find a place! Oh, there must be a place somewhere! She mustn't
get the croup an' die on me--she mustn't. Ain't I got to take her to her
ma, an' how could I tell her I let the baby die? Oh, where?"

With an agonized glance in every direction and a closer enfolding of the
sleeping child--over whose head she promptly threw her own abbreviated
skirt--she discovered, at last, a haven of refuge.

"My heart! That's littler 'an the littlest house, but it's big enough
fer us, you sweetest honey darlin', an' it must ha' growed a-purpose,
all in a minute, just fer us, like them fairy-lamp-an'-Aladdin yarns
what grandpa used to tell me! An' now I know fer true she is a surely
'Guardian Angel,' an' is tooken care of every time, 'cause a minute ago
that littler than the littlest wasn't there at all, for I never saw it
an' I should. An' now 'tis, an' we're in it an'----Oh, how glad I am!"

While these thoughts were passing through her mind Glory had been
staggering forward as swiftly as the wind and the burden she carried
would allow and she reached the shelter none too soon. The very instant
she passed within, the rain came down in torrents and the tiny structure
swayed dizzily in the gale.

"Littler than the littlest" it was, indeed; only a railway switchman's
"box," erected to shelter him in just such emergencies and from the cold
of winter nights. It had tiny windows and a narrow door; and, placing
Bonny Angel on the corner bench--its only furnishing--Take-a-Stitch
hastened to make all secure. The lightning flashed and the thunder
rolled, but still and happi