Arly studied the future citizen with the eye of a practical physical culturist, who knew exactly how she had preserved her clear complexion and lithe figure. In spite of his sturdy build, there was not enough protuberance to his chest, and, though his cheeks were full enough, there was a hollow look about his jaws and around his eyes.
“You’re over-trained,” she decisively told him. “You mustn’t play marbles very often, or very long at a time, because that stooping over in the dust isn’t good for you, and you mustn’t take your training runs up to that park. The other boy licks you because you’re all tired out. I don’t believe it’s because he’s a better fighter.”
That boy breathed with the sigh of one freed from a mighty burden, and the eyes which looked up into Arly’s were almost swimming with gratitude.
“She’s all right,” he told the next candidate. “She’s a pippin! Say, do you know what’s the matter with me? I’m over-trained,” and he smacked his chest resounding whacks and felt of his biceps.
There were troubles of all sorts and shapes and sizes, and Arly bent to them more concentrated wisdom than she had been called upon to display for years. It was a new game, one with a live zest, and Gail had invented it. Her admiration for Gail went up a notch. One boy was not so funny as his brother, and was never noticed; another had to eat turnips; and Arly’s only little girl, for she had started at the boy end, couldn’t have little slippers that pinched her feet!
“I’m glad I came home with you,” commented Arly, when she had finished her court and had distributed her money, which Gail had permitted her just this once, and they had driven up the block attended by an escort of exactly twenty-five. “It makes me think, and I’d almost forgotten how.”
“It makes me think, too,” confessed Gail, very seriously. “Suppose I should go away. They’d go right on living, but I like to flatter myself that I’m doing more good for them than somebody else could do.” Why that thought had worried her she could not say. She was home to stay now, except for the usual trips.
“You’d find the same opportunities anywhere,” Arly quickly assured her.
“Yes, but they wouldn’t be these same children,” worried Gail. “I’d never know others like I know these.”
“No,” admitted Arly slowly. “I think I’ll pick out a few when I go back home. I’ve often wondered how to do it, without having them think me a fool or a nosy, but you’ve solved the problem. You’re tremendously clever.”