After a while the racking sobs spent themselves. “There!” she said, sitting up. “I never thought I’d let a boy see me cry. Now I must go in and help Trudy get supper.”
She dabbed at her eyes with a wet little wad of linen. Bruce plucked a clean handkerchief from his pocket and tucked it into her fingers.
“Yours doesn’t seem quite big enough for the job,” he said.
She took it gratefully. She had never thought of a boy as a very comforting person, but Bruce was. “Oh, Bruce, you know!”
“Yes, I know.”
“It’s so—so lonely. Dad’s all I’ve got, of my really own, in the world.”
He nodded. “You’re gritty, all right.”
“Why, Bruce Fearing! how can you say that after the way I’ve acted?”
“That’s why I say it.”