“Very well,” said Mrs. Ashford, stroking the little girl's flushed cheek, “we will consider it settled. I will write to Mrs. Watson this afternoon, inclosing the money, and telling her about Jimmy.”
By Saturday a reply came from Mrs. Watson saying that arrangements had been made to send Jimmy to a kind woman in the country, who would take good care of him, and it was probable the money Marty had sent would pay his board there for nearly three weeks. She also said that Jimmy had been very poorly again. Dr. Fisher, finding him in Mrs. Scott's room one day when he called, had seen how miserable the boy was, and had given him medicine, and had said, when he heard he was going to be sent to the country, that it would be just the thing, better than any amount of medicine. The letter also stated that Mrs. Fisher had fitted Jimmy out in some of her little boy's clothes. So he would be very comfortable.
“Could anything be nicer!” exclaimed Marty. “I'm so glad of it all!”
The same mail that brought Mrs. Watson's letter brought Marty's little missionary magazine, which she always wanted to sit right down and read.
“Now,” said her mother, after they had got through talking over the letter, “I wish you would mind Freddie while I write some letters.”
Marty took her magazine into the back yard where Freddie was playing with his wheelbarrow under the lilac-bushes. She sat down by the big pear-tree to read, though not forgetting to keep an eye on her little brother's proceedings. Missions seemed as interesting as ever as she read. Presently she saw Evaline coming out of the kitchen with a pail of water and brush to scrub the back steps.
“Evaline,” she called, “when you get through your work come down here where I'm minding Freddie, wont you? I want to tell you something.”
“Yes,” replied Evaline, “I'll come pretty soon. This is the last thing I've got to do.”
She soon came and threw herself on the grass beside Marty, who forthwith began showing her the magazine and telling her in a rather incoherent way about mission work in general and their band in particular. She told how many belonged to the band, what they did at the meetings, how much money they had, and what they were going to do with it; how this band was only one of hundreds of bands that were all connected with a big society; and how the object of the whole thing was to teach the heathen in foreign lands about God and try to make Christians of them.
“That must be the same thing that Ruth Campbell was talking so much about a while ago,” said Evaline when Marty stopped, more to take breath than because she had nothing further to say.