Helen was ahead of Rosanna in school. She had had a better chance to start with, as Rosanna had only had private teachers and so had had no reason to strive to forge ahead. There had been no one to get ahead of! Now, however, she was studying to such good purpose that she hoped soon to overtake Helen. But it was a hard task, because Helen was a very bright little girl who could and would and did put her best effort in everything she did.
These, then, were the three little girls who sat on Rosanna’s doorstep and smelled the burning leaves and enjoyed the beautiful fall day.
“Rosanna is so good at making plans,” said Helen, smiling over at her friend.
“What shall your good plan be for?” asked Elise.
“Don’t you remember, Elise, our telling you about the picnic we had once, and the children who took supper with us?”
“Oh, oui—yess, yess!” said Elise, correcting herself hastily.
“And we told you how we took them home and saw poor Gwenny, their sister, who is so lame that she cannot walk at all, and is so good and patient about it? We mean to take you over to see her, now that you can speak English so nicely. She wants to see you so much.”
“I would be charm to go,” declared Elise, nodding her curly head.
“Well,” continued Rosanna, “Gwenny’s mother says that Gwenny could be cured, but that it would cost more than she could ever pay, and it is nothing that she could get done at the free dispensaries. Those are places where very, very poor people can go and get good doctors and nurses and advice without paying anything at all, but Gwenny could not go there.
“She would have to go to a big hospital in Cincinnati and stay for a long while. I thought about asking my grandmother if she would like to send Gwenny there, but just as I was going to speak of it last night, she commenced to talk to Uncle Robert about money, and I heard her tell him that she was never so hard up in her life, and what with the Liberty Loan drives taking all her surplus out of the banks, and the high rate of taxes, she didn’t know what she was going to do. So I couldn’t say a thing.”