have already been working for two months."

"A wood-gatherer and fire-maker; what extraordinary things a girl was
forced to become at an orphan asylum!" Betty's sympathies were
immediately aroused and her cheeks burned with resentment at the sudden
vision of this girl at her side trudging through the woods, her back
bent under heavy burdens. No wonder her shoulders stooped and her hands
were coarse. Betty slipped her arm through the stranger's.

"No, I won't trouble you to make my fire, but do come into my room and
let us just talk. None of my friends have been in to see me this
afternoon, not even the faithless Polly! They are too busy getting
ready for the end of school to think about poor, ill me." And Betty
laughed gayly at the untruthfulness of this picture of herself.

Once inside the blue room, without asking permission, Esther knelt
straightway down before the brass andirons and with deft fingers placed
a roll of twisted paper under a lattice-like pile of kindling, arranging
three small pine logs in a triangle above it. But before setting a
match to the paper she turned toward the other girl hovering about her
like a butterfly.

"I wonder if you would like me to recite the fire-maker's song?" she
asked. "I haven't the right to say it yet, but it is so lovely that I
would like you to hear it."

Betty stared and laughed. "Do fire-makers have songs?" she demanded.
"How queer that sounds! Perhaps the Indians used to have fire songs
long ago when a fire really meant so much. But I can't imagine a maid's
chanting a song before one's fire in the morning and I don't think I