a teacher?"

Rosie nodded. "I don't see any other."

"And what do you want to be, Rosie?"

"I don't want to be anything."

"Don't you want to do something?"

"No."

"But, Rosie dear, that's no way to talk. You know you can't sit through
life with folded hands, doing nothing."

Rosie protested: "But, Danny, I don't expect to do nothing. I know I
have to work and I do work, too. You ask ma. I take care of Geraldine
night and day, and you needn't think it isn't a big job taking care of a
baby, because it is. And I used to take care of Jarge Riley, too. Old
Mis' Riley herself told me I took as good care of him as she did. And
she meant it, too. Oh, I could just work forever for Geraldine and
Jarge."

Danny looked at her a few moments in silence. "Rosie dear," he said
gently, "pull your chair over close. I want to talk to you."

Rosie obeyed and, after a slight pause, Danny continued: "You're
troubled about Jarge, aren't you, Rosie?"

Rosie's eyes filled with tears. "I suppose I am, Danny."

"Rosie," Danny asked slowly, "are you in love with Jarge?"

The question startled Rosie. She stared blankly through her tears. "Why,
Danny, how can you say a thing like that? I'm only a little girl and
Jarge is a grown man!"

"But you'd like to take care of him all the time, wouldn't you, Rosie?"

Rosie nodded. "You bet I would! If I could have just Jarge and
Geraldine, I wouldn't care how hard I'd have to work! I'd do anything
for both of them. Don't you know, Danny, I just feel like they're
_mine_!"

"I thought so, Rosie." Danny sighed and cleared his throat. "Now listen
carefully, Rosie, what I've got to say. As you say yourself you're only
a little girl now, but in a few years you'll be a big girl, as big as
Ellen is today. And then perhaps, Rosie, you'll be marrying some one."

"No, Danny, no!" Rosie cried. "I don't want to be marrying some one,
honest I don't!"

Danny waved aside the interruption. "As I was saying, perhaps you'll be
marrying some one, and then after while you'll be having babies of your
own."

"Oh, Danny!" A look of wonder, almost of ecstasy, spread over Rosie's
face. Instinctively her arms reached out for the precious burden of the
future. "Do you really mean it, Danny?" she whispered. "My _own_!"

"Yes, Rosie, I mean it. And you'll be a wonderful mother, for you'll
know how to feed your children properly and take proper care of them.
But in one way, Rosie, I fear you'll be a pretty poor m