If ever there was a happy, excited little girl, it was Katie that night. She could not sleep or eat. When she had to go to bed, she lay awake long, long hours, thinking how she would buy back the big house, how mother should have doctors and every thing she needed, how Bessie should stop teaching and have a horse and little carriage, and pretty dresses, and a piano, like she used to, and how Robbie should go to school and college and grow up to be a great man and finally be President. She never thought of herself, except that she was to do all this, and when she fell asleep she dreamed the whole thing over again, and that it had turned out just as she planned.
All through the excursion season Katie sold her leaves, and though she never made as much as on the first day, yet when people stopped coming she had over one hundred dollars in Bessie’s hands, all made by herself, all made by being up early and attending to her household duties and working hard so as to have her bunches ready by the time that visitors were returning to the train.
She was brave, and true, and unselfish, and her reward was great.
It was one chill November evening, toward Thanksgiving day, that she and Robbie had wandered out among the mountain paths; the little fellow was wild as a colt and ran here and there until it was all Katie could do to keep track of him. Finally she caught him; both were tired out, and when she looked around, to her great terror, she could not make out just where they were. They wandered along and at last came to a road, but she did not know which way to go. Robbie was cross and sleepy; she could not carry the heavy boy, and he would lay down; at last she let him rest. He dropped by a fallen log and in a moment was asleep. She covered him with a little cloth cape she wore, and sat down beside him; her eyes were heavy, she nodded, and very soon was as sound as he.
Along the road came a thin, old, but active man; he stepped out firmly and aided his steps with a stout cane. It was after dusk of the evening. He spied something in the gloom, on the other side of the road, something unusual; he crossed over; it was a little girl leaning against a big, fallen tree and a small boy stretched on the ground beside it; both were fast asleep. He touched the girl’s shoulder; she sprang up. “Oh!” she gasped, “don’t hurt Robbie! We weren’t doing any harm, indeed we weren’t.”
“What are you doing here any how?” he inquired.
“It was Robbie, no, it was me, he was so sleepy and so was I, and we were just resting until we could start and try to find home again.”
“Um! so you’re lost, are you?”
“No, sir, I guess not only—only we don’t know the way.”
“Well, I should say that’s pretty near being lost. Where do you live? What’s your name?”