he judge had the end boarded up to protect the boy's
cot from snow or rain; and there, in a warm sleeping-bag, with a wool
cap over his ears, and a little fox terrier cuddled down beside him for
company, Jim slept through all the winter weather.

He and the judge were great chums now. It would be hard to say which
most enjoyed the half-hour they spent together before Laura carried the
boy off to bed. And as for Laura--she often wondered how she had ever
gotten on without Jim. He filled the big house with life, and she didn't
at all mind the noise and disorder that he brought into it. He whistled
now from morning till night, and his pockets were perfect catch-alls.
Sometimes they were stuck together with chewing-gum or molasses candy,
and sometimes they were soaked with wet sponges, and his hands--she
counted one Saturday, thirteen times that she sent him to wash them
between getting up and bedtime.

The girls always wanted Jim at their Camp Fire meetings, for a part of
the time at least. As "Miss Laura's boy" they felt that in a way he
belonged to them too, and Jim was very proud and happy to make one of
the company.

"I'm going to be a Camp Fire boy until I'm big enough to be a Scout, if
you'll all let me," he told the girls one night, and they all gave him
the most cordial of welcomes.

He was sitting between Olga and Elizabeth, when the girls were talking
about some of the babies they had found.

"We never find one that is just right," Rose Parsons complained. "Or if
the baby is what we would like, there is always some one that wants to
keep it."

"I'm glad of it," Lena Barton flung out. "It was silly of us to think of
taking a baby, anyhow. We better just help out somewhere--maybe with
some older kid." Her red-brown eyes flashed a glance at Jim.

It was then that Frances Chapin broke in earnestly, "O girls, I do so
wish you'd take one of the old ladies at the Home! They need our help
quite as much as the babies--more, I sometimes think, for they are so
old and tired, and they've such a little time to--to have things done
for them. The babies have chances, but the chances of these old ladies
are almost over. There's one--Mrs. Barlow--I'm sure you couldn't help
loving her--she is so gentle and patient and uncomplaining, although she
cannot see to sew or read, and cannot go out alone. She has her board
and room at the Home of course, but clothes are not provided, and she
hasn't any money at all. Just think of n