"I don't know her name, or who she is," replied Amos, with a quiet laugh. "But I know that in the three or four hundred patients in the big hospital there must be one girl with a broken leg, and they will give it to her, and it will make her feel glad."
Mrs. Franklin looked at Amos with a smile on her face, but without speaking.
"Then I have written," continued the little cripple, "three other letters to boys and girls in the hospital, directing them to what I think they're most likely to be laid up with. And I mean to watch the papers hereafter for the 'casualty cases,' so that I can get their names. That will be so much nicer, won't it?"
Mrs. Franklin came over and stroked his hair affectionately.
"Is this your own idea?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, brightly. "I got to thinking how lonesome the children must be, even if the nurses are kind; and you know folks can't always visit them. Then I knew no one would think of writing letters, and it would be such a treat for them to know that a strange boy was talking to them."
"My dear son," murmured his mother, fondly.
"Of course," he went on, "I'm not going to tell them that I'm an invalid, because that would make them feel badly. And, then, I'm not in the hospital; I'm home, and that makes all the difference in the world."
"It is an excellent idea," said Mrs. Franklin, cheerfully, but with tears in her eyes.
"Do you think so, really?" he asked, eagerly. "I am so glad, because, do you know, mother, I have been getting so gloomy of late, thinking how useless I am."