“Don’t you want to have a name for her?” Elsa asked, after a half moment of waiting.
“Vhat?” asked the child, clasping her tiny hands the tighter around the doll.
“Name her Bettina,” said Elsa, softly.
“’Tina,” repeated the little girl. “Dat’s dood name. Dat’s nursey’s name.”
“Where is nursey?” Elsa sprang up from her knees and looked around the room at the nurses. All the faces were strange to her. “Where is she?” Elsa asked again, almost in tears.
“Don ’way,” said the wee little girl. And, leaving her staring with two very bright eyes at the doll, Elsa went back to Miss Ruth’s side and took hold of her hand tightly.
“You ought to be here some day when new children come,” said the head-nurse kindly, noticing Elsa’s sober face, “and see how those who have been here longest crowd around and tell the new children about the nice things they do here. It makes the new children feel happy and at home, immediately, so that they are hardly ever homesick. Sometimes after the children are well, they don’t want to go home. One little girl used to run and hide every time we spoke of her going home.”
“I don’t wonder,” Elsa said quickly. “It’s so pleasant here for them.”
“Would you like to see where almost all the children sleep?” asked the head-nurse, now that Elsa’s face had brightened.
“Yes, indeed,” Elsa said. Then Miss Ruth called the other members of the Club, and they followed Miss Hartwell into one after another of the three rooms, or “shacks,” which reached out, like arms, from the playroom; and Miss Hartwell showed them how the windows and even the doors could be moved so as to let plenty of fresh air into the shacks; she said that the children never complained of feeling cold, for they were bundled up in flannel clothing and hoods at night. Some of the children limped along, following the visitors from one shack into the next, and listening, nodded their heads with great interest while Miss Hartwell made the explanation.