“Jim” she said, shaking hands with him just as if he had been a man, “I’ve brought some of my girls to see you to-day. I hope you are glad to see us all, but you needn’t say you are if you are not.”
Jim didn’t say—and Rose Anderson laughed softly. Jim flashed a glance at her, but he saw at once that it wasn’t a mean laugh—just a girly giggle, and he manfully ignored it.
“I have to speak to Charley Smith over there,” Miss Laura went on, “but I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
As she crossed to the other cot, Frances Chapin slipped into the chair by Jim’s—there was only one chair between each two cots. “I think you are about nine, aren’t you, Jim?” she asked.
“Goin’ on ten,” Jim corrected stoutly.
“I’ve a brother going on ten,” she said.
Jim looked at her with quick interest. “Tell about him,” he ordered. “What’s his name?”
“David Chapin. He’s in the sixth grade——”
“So’m I—I mean I was ’fore I came here,” Jim interrupted. “What else?”
“—and he’s—he’s going to be a Boy Scout as soon as he’s twelve.”