"Not that we know of."
"Then what will you do with him? He can't live here always, can he?"
"No. Some day he will have to be sent to a Children's Home or some such institution where homeless waifs are cared for, until some kind heart adopts him."
"But no one wants lame children to adopt," Peace protested. "Do you s'pose Billy Bolee will ever get adopted?"
"We hope so."
Peace was silent a moment, then thoughtfully remarked, "There was a fat old hen in our church—there! I didn't mean to say fat, 'cause I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world,—but Mrs. Burns was fat, and she used to come over to our house after I got hurt and tell me how thankful I ought to be. It made me awful mad at first, but I b'lieve I know now what she meant. Now there's my Lilac Lady,—she had heaps of money, and a great, splendid house to live in, and Aunt Pen to take care of her; so even if she never could walk again, 'twasn't as bad as it would have been s'posing she was poor and didn't have anything of her own. Then there's me. If I had fallen off a roof in Parker and cracked my back, 'twould have been perfectly awful, 'cause there would have been no money for doctors and such like, and I guess it costs heaps to get operated on. But as it is now, I've got Grandpa and Grandma Campbell to take care of me, and there ain't any danger of my being sent to a Children's Home or the poor farm. There are a pile of thankfuls in this world, ain't there?"
"Yes indeed," answered the nurse warmly. "This world is a pretty good old world, and no matter what happens, there is always something left for every one to be thankful about. Isn't that so?"
"Uh-huh. That's what Papa used to tell us, and before every Thanksgiving dinner we had to think up some p'tic'lar big thankful that had happened to us that year. Even after he and Mamma had gone to Heaven, Gail made us do the same thing, and you'd be s'prised to see the things we dug up to be thankful about even if we were orphants, and poorer than mice. One year I managed to kill a turkey that b'longed to another man; so we had some meat for dinner when we hadn't really expected any. 'Twasn't often we got turkey, either,—not even when Papa was alive. But we always have it at Grandpa's on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm very fond of turkey, ain't you?"