Tiny Nancy, almost swooning, said:—
"Donaldson? Oh, Kathy! That's Lucy's Dad, of Company Two, you know!" and Frank and John Smith shot wildly downstairs to find out about it. In an instant a sobbing girlish form was dashing madly from that Night School building towards our Municipal Hospital. It was Lucy; bright, always laughing Lucy; but half an hour ago singing so happily in that girls' trio.
As that big factory was still blazing furiously, Frank and John, coming in, said:—
"It was only a scalp wound, and a sprung wrist. Lucy is coming upstairs, now."
Lucy, coming in, badly blown from running and fright, said:—
"That wall caught Daddy; but it was so old and thin it didn't crush him. Oh! How I worry if that alarm rings!"
"But," put in Nancy, "it's man's work. Pshaw!! What good am I? Why, I couldn't do a thing around that factory, right now! Look at my arm! About as big as a ball bat!" and as Frank took that sad, tiny form in his arms, Gadsby said:—
"All throughout Natural History, Nancy, you will find man built big and strong, and woman small and frail. That is so that man can obtain food for his family, and that woman may nourish his offspring. But today, I am sorry to say, you'll find girls working hard, in gymnasiums, fondly hoping to attain man's muscular parity. How silly!! It's going straight against all natural laws. Girls can find a lot of bodily good in gymnasiums, I'll admit! but not that much. And as for your 'ball-bat' arm, as you call it, what of it? You'd look grand, now wouldn't you, with Frank's big oak-branch arms hanging way down to your shins. But that ball-bat arm can curl around your tiny baby as softly as a down pillow. Aw, darling! Don't say you can't do anything; for I know you can. How about our old Organization of Youth days? You,——"
And Nancy, now laughing, said, gaily:—
"Oho! Our old Organization! What fun it was! But, Daddy, I don't know of any young crowd following us up."