turned to the other women.
"Why, Maria, Susan, I remember just as well as if it were only yesterday
how we used to rub our cheeks with rough mullein leaves to make them red
for Love Feast, don't you remember?"

Aunt Maria's cheeks grew pink. "Ach, Barbara, mebbe we did that when we
were young and foolish, but we didn't act like this."

"Not much different, I guess," said Phoebe's champion with a smile.
"Only we forget it now. Phoebe is just like we were once and she'll get
over it like we did. Let her play; she'll soon be too old to want to
play or to know how. She ain't a bad child, just full of life and likes
to do things other people don't think of doing."

"She, surely does," said Aunt Maria curtly, ill pleased by the woman's
words. "Where that child gets all her notions from I'd like to know.
It's something new every day."

"She'll be all right when she gets older," said David's mother.

"Be sure, yes," agreed Granny Hogendobler; "it don't do to be too
strict."

"Mebbe so," said the other women, with various shades of understanding
in their words.

Phoebe looked gratefully into the face of Granny Hogendobler, then she
turned to David's mother and spoke to her as though there were no others
present in the room.

"You know, don't you, how little girls like to play? You called me
precious child just like she would----"

"She would," repeated Aunt Maria. "What do you mean?"

"I mean my mother," she explained and turned again to her champion. "I
was just thinking this after on the garret that I'd like you for my
mother, to adopt you for it like people do with children when they have
none and want some. I hear lots of people call you Aunty Bab--dare I
call you Mother Bab?"

The woman laid a hand on the child's tumbled hair. Her voice trembled as
she answered, "Yes, Phoebe, you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little
girl so you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you should wash
your face and get fixed right again."

"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"

"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes right and put 'em in the
trunk and put your hair in two plaits again. If you're big enough to do
such dumb things you're big enough to comb your hair." And Aunt Maria,
peeved and hurt at the child's behavior, went back to her quilting while
Phoebe hurried from the room alone.

The child scrubbed the three layers of decoration from her face, trudged
up the stairs to the attic, took off the rose-sprigged gown and