"I'll race you to the store," he said, "and I'll give you a start from here to the corner."
Therefore, Ruth set off and the two reached the store neck and neck. They entered breathing hard between quick bursts of laughter.
[CHAPTER II]
The Pocket
THE next Saturday there was another long seam of stitches to pick out. To this piece of cloth also was hanging a pocket of rather pretty pink and white stuff. Ruth thought it would make a good frock for her one doll, Henrietta. She meant to ask Aunt Hester if she could have the pocket.
Miss Brackenbury had been called into the next room by the arrival of a visitor. Ruth could hear the sound of their voices, Miss Brackenbury's low and quiet; Miss Amanda Beach's high and shrill. She heard a word or two now and then which made her think they were talking of herself and Billy. Then the subject changed and she heard payments and receipts and lawyers talked about.
She wondered how grown-up people could be interested in such dull subjects, so she let her thoughts wander to the striped pocket which would perhaps make a frock for Henrietta. The doll was named for Miss Hester's twin sister who had died when she was about Ruth's age and Ruth realized that Miss Hester had a tenderer feeling for the little waif because of this much loved twin sister.
"And then," Ruth said to herself, "I can make a sunbonnet for my doll like the one Henrietta used to wear, a pink one. I have some scraps of pink gingham that Lucia Field gave me. I wish I knew whether I could have the pocket."
She heard a stir of chairs in the next room and supposed that Miss Beach was about to go, but she was mistaken in this for the next moment Miss Hester came into the room where Ruth was, and going to an old writing desk, took from it a lot of papers.
Ruth improved the opportunity. "Are you going to use this pocket, Aunt Hester?" she asked. "It has a hole in it, a little one. Will you want it for Billy's coat?"