Even me, who might as well be that man in the Bible, Melchesey
something, who didn't have beginning or end, or any relations.

I had fourteen from outside. Some I hid, because I didn't want the girls
to know, several not getting more than one, and hardly any more than
three or four.

Those who had the heart to give them didn't have the money, and those
who had the money didn't have the heart. Being so busy with their own
they forgot to remember, and if it hadn't been for Miss Katherine and
her friends this last Christmas would have been like all others.

Her Army brother's wife sent a box full of all sorts of pretty Indian
things, she being in the wild West near the Indians who made them. And
she sent ten dolls, all dressed, for the ten youngest girls.

She is awful busy, having three children and not much money; but Miss
Katherine says busy people make time, and those who have most to do, do
more still.

She sent me the darlingest little bedroom slippers with fur all around
the top. And in them she put a little note that made me cry and cry and
cry, it was so dear and mothery. I don't know what made me cry, but I
couldn't help it. I couldn't.

She doesn't know me except from what Miss Katherine writes, and I
wonder why she wrote that note. But everybody is good to me--that is,
nearly everybody.

It certainly makes a difference in your backbone when people are kind