costumes and drill them."

A stuffed animal play and a fair sounded delightfully exciting, and
when Bobby mentioned his plans to a group of close friends at recess he
found them most responsive.

"There's nothing much to do 'round now," said Palmer Davis. "I'm dead
tired coasting every day. I'd like to help Mrs. Jordan."

Mrs. Jordan was an old woman who lived in a tumbled-down house. She
had a crippled son, and had supported herself, since the death of her
husband, by going out to work by the day. As she had always worked
faithfully and never complained, Oak Hill people really did not know
that this winter she had had a hard time to get enough to eat and coal
enough to burn. Her son was unable to earn anything, and Miss Mason,
for whom Mrs. Jordan washed, had thought that it would be a kindness to
put him in a home where he would be well taken care of at no expense to
his mother.

"I'll not hear of it!" declared Mrs. Jordan angrily, when the teacher
mentioned this plan to her. "He's going to live at home with me as
long as I have a roof to cover us."

Miss Mason, who, like many kind-hearted people, did not like her well
meant offers to be refused, had told Mrs. Jordan plainly that she was
ungrateful, and that she need not bother to come for the wash any more.
So the poor old woman, who counted on this dollar and a half weekly,
was deprived of that money. In Oak Hill so many housewives did their
own work that there was not a great deal of extra work to be had.