s I had been permitted to live with my
mother, Mrs. Miller of course knew me well; so one day when she found me
engaged in the unsatisfactory occupation of recounting my money she asked
me, very gruffly, what I was going to do through the summer. I gazed at
her with wide, frightened eyes, and was simply dumb. More sharply, she
asked: "Do you hear?--what are you going to do when the theatre closes?"

I swallowed hard, and then faintly answered: "I've got one week's board
saved, Mrs. Miller, but after that I--I--," had my soul depended upon the
speaking of another word I could not have uttered it.

She glared her most savage glare at me. She impatiently pushed her false
front awry, pulled at her spectacles, and finally took up one of my six
little piles of coin and asked: "What's this for?"

"Washing," I gasped.

"You don't send your handkerchiefs to the wash, do you?" she demanded,
suspiciously.

I shook my head and pointed to a handkerchief drying on a string at my
half-window.

"That's right," she remarked, in a slightly mollified tone. Then she
reached over, took up the pile that was meant for the next week's board,
and putting it in her pocket, she remarked: "I'll just take this _now_,
so you won't run no risk of losing it, and for the next five weeks after,
why, well your mother was honest before you, and I reckon you're going to
take after her. You promise to be a hard worker, too, so, well nobody
else has ever been able to stay in this room over a week--so I guess you
can go on stopping right here, till the theatre opens again, and you can
pay me by fits and starts as it comes handy for you. Why, what's the
matter with you? Well, I vum! you must be clean tuckered out to cry like
that! Land sakes, child! tie a wet rag on your head and lay right down,
till you can get picked up a bit!" and out she bounced.

Dear old raging savage! how she used to frighten us all! how she barked
and barked, but she never, never bit! How I wanted to kiss her withered
old cheek that day when she offered me shelter on trust! But she was
eighty-five years old and my honored guest here at "The Pines" before I
told her all the terror and the gratitude she brought to me that day.

My clear skin, bright eyes, and round face gave me an appearance of
perfect health, which was belied by the pain I almost unceasingly
endured. The very inadequate provision my poor mother had been able to
make for the necessaries of her child's welfare, th