aper. She put the cover on, and wrapped the box neatly.

Then she wrote the address. She wrote it painfully, laboriously, in
round blocky letters. Pearl always put her tongue out when she was
doing anything that required minute attention. She was so anxious to
have the address just right that her tongue was almost around to her
ear. The address read:

Miss Polly Bragg, english gurl
and sick with fever
Brandon Hospittle
Brandon.

Then she drew a design around it. Jimmy's teacher had made them once in
Jimmy's scribbler, just beautiful. She was sorry she could not do a
bird with a long strip of tape in his mouth with "Think of Me" or "From
a Friend" or "Love the Giver" on it. Ma knew a man once who could do
them, quick as wink. He died a drunkard with delirium trimmings, but
was terrible smart.

Then she stuck, under the string, a letter she had written to Camilla.
Camilla would get them sent to Polly.

"I know how to get them sent to Camilla too, you bet," she murmured.
"There are two ways, both good ones, too. Jim Russell is one way. Jim
knows what flowers are to folks."

She crept softly down the stairs. Mrs Motherwell had left the kitchen
and no one was about. The men were all down at the barn.

She turned around the cookhouse where the poppies stood straight and
strong against the glowing sky. A little single red one with white
edges swayed gently on its slender stem and seemed to beckon to her
with pleading insistence. She hurried past them, fearing that she would
be seen, but looking back the little poppy was still nodding and
pleading.

"And so ye can go, ye sweetheart," she whispered. "I know what ye
want." She came back for it.

"Just like Danny would be honin' to come, if it was me," she murmured
with a sudden blur of homesickness.

Through the pasture she flew with the speed of a deer. The tall
sunflowers along the fence seemed to throw a light in the gathering
gloom.

A night hawk circled in the air above her, and a clumsy bat came
bumping through the dusk as she crossed the creek just below Jim's
shanty.

Bottles, Jim's dog, jumped up and barked, at which Jim himself came to
the door.

"Come back, Bottles," he called to the dog. "How will I ever get into
society if you treat callers that way, and a lady, too! Dear, dear, is
my tie on straight? Oh, is that you Pearl? Come right in, I am glad to
see you."

Over the door of Jim's little house the words "Happy Home" were printed