“Black Lace Lady,” Ben answered, “because she had on a black lace dress the first time I ever saw her, and it was pretty.”
“Ben always names people,” said Alice. “He calls me Peggy most of the time.”
“What is your name for me, Ben?” asked Betty, dancing on ahead.
“You?” Ben looked at her brown curls and bright eyes for a half moment and then said: “I am going to call you the Glad Girl.”
“That’s nice,” Betty said, with an extra swing of the lunch-bag. “Mother calls me Sunshine sometimes—and sometimes the Tornado. What’s your name for Elsa?”
Ben thought a moment: “I haven’t any name for Elsa yet: I am saving that up.” Then he gazed at Miss Ruth anxiously: “Isn’t it Alice’s turn to carry that straw bag?” Alice had found time to explain to him about the lunch. “We can take shorter turns now, ’cause I can carry it, too.”
So the bag was given into Alice’s keeping.
“Tell us about the place where we are going, Miss Ruth, please?” asked Elsa, who was enjoying the woods walk so much that she had kept quiet most of the way.
“To begin with,” replied Miss Ruth, “there is a large hospital in the city, especially for children; but large as it is, there are always more sick children to be taken into it than there is room for. When the children in the hospital are getting well, they are brought out here to the Convalescent Home where they can be cared for before going to their own homes,—which are sometimes very poor homes. And the life out here, with the sunshine and the fresh air and good care, makes the children ever and ever so much stronger. There are about seventy or eighty children here all the time.”
“Poor little children,” said Elsa. Betty was walking along quietly now, and Ben had taken Alice’s blue-mittened hand in his.