“Well, they don’t seem to have the same joy in them, only at Miss Armitage’s every day seems like Sunday. But I keep counting them. You see, I’ll be thirteen in September. Then when we’ve had fifty-two Sundays I’ll be fourteen and so on, until I am eighteen.”
“And then?” in a sweet kind of tone.
“Why I won’t be bound-out any more. It’s right for me to stay, she said so, but it would 127 seem such a long while if I was just counting the years. And Sunday comes so quick, most times, and then you can be glad.”
What a touch of philosophy for a child!
“But—they are good to you at Bordens?”
“Oh, yes. I love Bridget, though I was afraid of her at first. But the grown people have each other and since I don’t really belong to them—oh, I can’t explain it,” and the knot came back to her brow. “You see when you’re bound-out and going away for a while they can’t feel the same to you. They’re never real cross and they don’t whip you as they did at the Home, and you have nicer things to eat. Sometimes when you were awful hungry you didn’t seem to get enough. You wanted one more piece of bread, but you couldn’t have it. Oh, I like it so much better at Mrs. Borden’s Only Jack—Are boys always bad?”
“I guess they are for the most part,” laughing.
“But he will go to school again. And his father says he will outgrow it. His father truly does want him to be good, and he said I must tell when he pinched me or kicked me, 128 and he would punish him. But I don’t like to, always, for he denies it, and his mother isn’t pleased when I do. You can feel when people do not like you to tell things. At the Home when you told tales they whipped the child that was bad, and then they whipped you for telling tales. It didn’t seem as if that was quite fair, so I tried never to tell on anyone.”
“Generally speaking, it is a bad habit,” he commented, gravely.
Then they had reached their destination. A poor old paralyzed man sat in a wheeling chair on the porch. Medical skill could not do much for him, but friendship and interest made pleasant times to remember when the hours were long and weary. Dr. Richards had brought some illustrated magazines, and they talked over the happenings of the week.