“Good luck!” were Tom’s parting words. “We’ll come to-morrow and help you take her back, if you like.”
“You needn’t bother,” said his sister. “We’ll take the faithful rowboat.”
“We aren’t going to take her back!” insisted Louise. “I’m going to adopt her. Sandy, wouldn’t you like to live with me? I’d dress you in nice clothes and give you a dolly.”
“An’ five cents?” demanded Sandy, “An’ things to eat?”
“Oh, the poor baby!” said Louise. “She’s had to think about money and food and grown-up things like the poor little children you read about in the pamphlets. Yes, indeed, you shall, Sandy.”
“She looks well-fed,” said Tom. “Well, good luck. Don’t get a reputation for collecting them—you mayn’t be able to dispose of orphans as easily as you can kittens.”
They parted, and Louise carried Sandy into camp. They arrived as supper was about ready. The Blue Birds carried the fish off to the ice-box (it was literally a box, a very ingenious arrangement of sawdust and wood which had meant a bead for Elizabeth) and the rest clustered about Louise’s treasure-trove.
“Better find out if she really needs adopting,” advised Marie as they sat around the long table, and Sandy exercised an appetite as large as her noon one.
“With a drunken father, and no mother, and looking like that?” fired up Louise. “I’m going to wash her after supper.”
There seemed no connection between washing her and adopting her, but there evidently was to Louise.