It did fit exactly, and within two days Elizabeth was the Poor Thing to every girl in the camp. Laura kept the child with her most of the first day; she was quiet and still as a ghost, did as she was told, and watched all that went on, but she spoke to no one and never asked a question. At night she was given a cot next to Olga’s. When Laura showed her her place at bedtime, she pointed to the adjoining tent.
“I sleep right there, Elizabeth,” she said, “and if you want anything in the night, just speak, and I shall hear you. But I hope you will sleep so soundly that you won’t know anything till morning. It’s lovely sleeping out of doors like this!”
Elizabeth said nothing, but she shivered as she cast a fearful glance into the shadowy spaces beyond the tents, and Laura hastened to add, “You needn’t be a bit afraid. Nothing but birds and squirrels ever come around here.”
Elizabeth went early to bed, and was apparently sound asleep when the other girls went to their cots. But after all was still and the camp lights out, she lay trembling, and staring wide-eyed into the darkness. A thousand strange small sounds beat on her strained ears, and when suddenly the hoot of an owl rang out from a nearby treetop, Elizabeth sprang up with a frightened cry and clutched wildly at the girl in the nearest cot.
Olga’s cold voice answered her cry. “It’s nothing but an owl, you goose! Go back to your bed!”
But Elizabeth was on her knees, clinging desperately to Olga’s hand.
“O, I’m afraid, I’m afraid!” she moaned. “Please please let me stay here with you. I never was in a p-place like this before.”
Olga jerked her hand away from the clinging fingers. “Get back to your bed!” she ordered under her breath. “Anybody’d think you were a baby.”
“I don’t care what anybody’d think if you’ll only let me stay. I—I must touch s-somebody,” wailed the Poor Thing in a choked voice.
“Well, it won’t be me you’ll touch,” retorted Olga. “And if you don’t keep still I’ll report you in the morning. You’ll have every girl in the camp awake presently.”