“Tell me about him. Is it Terry whom you wish to adopt?”
Miss Buell nodded. “I was under-housekeeper at the Boston orphanage two years ago, and this little fellow—he was five then—was brought in. He was found on the steps in a basket after dark and the matron said they couldn’t keep him. He was so twisted she thought he’d need a nurse all the time, and what was more, when he came to the age to be homed out, there wouldn’t be anybody that would want him. Well, it was decided that he would have to be sent somewhere else, but it being late evening they had to keep him till they could find where he could be taken. What to do with him that night troubled the matron. Then ’twas I stepped up and said I’d keep him in my room and be glad to. He was in awful pain all night, the little fellow was, and though he didn’t cry out loud, he kept up a pitiful moaning, and his eyes looked scared, as though somebody’d hit him for it. But when I picked him up and held him close in my arms, he seemed to feel better, and by and by he went to sleep, but I didn’t lay him down. I just held him there all night, and though my arms ached, there was a warm feeling in my heart. I just knew that it was love. The next morning, the matron said the proper authorities were coming to get him. I kept watching and when I saw the hard-faced woman in a blue uniform who came I just up and told that matron that I was going to keep the little fellow myself. The next day I was to leave there, anyway, so I took Terry with me and I asked in the city where was the place that crooked babies were made straight. They told me about a hospital. It cost a lot to have Terry taken in there, but I left him, and I’ve sent them all the money I’ve made here every month up to now.
“They’ve done lots for that little fellow. He can walk some, and the nurses are teaching him to read and write. The doctor tells me if I can leave him there five years more he’ll be about like other boys, excepting that he’ll always have to wear braces.”
“And are you going to try to keep him there for five more years, Miss Buell?” Virginia felt awed in the presence of such complete self-sacrifice.
The thin woman’s face brightened. “Of course I am, but first I want to have Terry made into an own relation. Then when the time is up I’m going to take him back to my father’s old farm. That’s mine, clear, and Terry and I’ll make it into a home.”
Then the woman rose.
“Thanks,” she said, “for coming in, but I’ve kept this shut up inside myself for so long I just wanted to tell somebody about Terry.”
“Thank you for telling me,” the girl replied, and then as she left the small room she suddenly recalled a joking conversation of the girls on the day she had arrived at Vine Haven. Babs had been telling about Miss Snoopins and had called her “heartless,” but Virginia had declared that everyone had a heart, and Margaret had prophesied that if Miss Snoopins had one, Virginia would find it. How she did wish she could tell the girls. Some day perhaps she would be given permission to do so. The others looked up wonderingly as she entered.
All Virginia said was: “I have found the heart of Miss Buell, and this much I will tell you, there is no one in this school who is living a life of greater self-sacrifice.”
The girls, who had gathered in the corner room occupied by Margaret and Babs, were indeed surprised to hear that Virginia had found the heart of Miss Snoopins. But, since that maiden did not feel that she had a right to tell the sweet, sad story, they soon forgot about it in recounting their own news items that had arrived in the same mail pouch.