"Here's another contribution from Miss Dean. She asked me to bring this over."
"Why, yes, I see," breathed Pollyanna, turning to Sadie Dean. But
Sadie Dean had gone.
Pollyanna watched Jamie a good deal after that, though she was careful not to let him, or any one else, see that she was watching him. And as she watched, her heart ached. Twice she saw him essay a task and fail: once with a box too heavy for him to lift; once with a folding-table too unwieldy for him to carry with his crutches. And each time she saw his quick glance about him to see if others noticed. She saw, too, that unmistakably he was getting very tired, and that his face, in spite of its gay smile, was looking white and drawn, as if he were in pain.
"I should think we might have known more," stormed Pollyanna hotly to herself, her eyes blinded with tears. "I should think we might have known more than to have let him come to a place like this. Camping, indeed!—and with a pair of crutches! Why couldn't we have remembered before we started?"
An hour later, around the camp fire after supper, Pollyanna had her answer to this question; for, with the glowing fire before her, and the soft, fragrant dark all about her, she once more fell under the spell of the witchery that fell from Jamie's lips; and she once more forgot—Jamie's crutches.
CHAPTER XXII
COMRADES
They were a merry party—the six of them—and a congenial one. There seemed to be no end to the new delights that came with every new day, not the least of which was the new charm of companionship that seemed to be a part of this new life they were living.
As Jamie said one night, when they were all sitting about the fire:
"You see, we seem to know each other so much better up here in the woods—better in a week than we would in a year in town."