Nance crossed her heart with a floury finger.
"I'm going to be a actress," said Birdie.
It was fortunate for Nance that Birdie's term at the home soon ended. She was at that impressionable age which reflects the nearest object of interest, and shortly after Birdie's departure she abandoned the idea of joining her on the professional boards, and decided instead to become a veterinary surgeon.
This decision was reached through a growing intimacy with the lame old soldier who presided over the Forest Home stables. "Doc" was a familiar character in the county, and his advice about horses was sought far and near. Next to horses he liked children, and after them dogs. Adults came rather far down the line, excepting always Miss Stanley, whom he regarded as infallible.
On the red-letter Sunday when Uncle Jed had tramped the ten miles out from town to assure himself of Nance's well-being, he discovered in Doc an old comrade of the Civil War. They had been in the same company, Uncle Jed as a drummer boy, and Doc in charge of the cavalry horses.
"Why, I expect you recollict this child's grandpaw," Uncle Jed said, with his hand on Nance's head, "Molloy, 'Fightin' Phil,' they called him. Went down with the colors at Chickasaw Bluffs."
Doc did remember. Fighting Phil had been one of the idols of his boyhood.
Miss Stanley found in this friendship a solution of Nance's chief difficulty. When a person of eleven has been doing practical housekeeping for a family of eight, she naturally resents the suggestion that there is anything in domestic science for her to learn. Moreover, when said person is anemic and nervous from overwork, and has a tongue that has never known control, it is perilously easy to get into trouble, despite heroic efforts to be good.
The wise superintendent saw in the girl all sorts of possibilities for both good and evil. For unselfish service and passionate sacrifice, as well as obstinate rebellion and hot-headed folly.
At those unhappy times when Nance threatened to break over the bounds, she was sent out to the stables to spend an afternoon with Doc. No matter how sore her grievance, it vanished in the presence of the genial old veterinarian. She never tired of hearing him tell of her fighting Irish grandfather and the pranks he played on his messmates, of Uncle Jed and the time he lost his drumsticks and marched barefoot in the snow, beating his drum with the heels of his shoes.