scovered her one afternoon standing on a chair and calmly smelling
the rows of bottles that stood on the cabinet shelf, one after the
other. The shining instruments, in their glass racks, had a
fascination all their own for the small girl and she declared that
she intended to be a doctor when she grew up.

"All right, and I'll take you into practice with me," Doctor Hugh
promised, having surprised her in a hurried investigation of his
medicine case. "But leave all these things alone, until you are
ready to study medicine. Don't come in the office when I'm not here,
Shirley; you'll hurt yourself some day, if you are not careful."

But Shirley was possessed with the idea that she would like to be a
doctor. She begged and carefully treasured all the empty bottles and
pill boxes she could gather; she demanded a knife for "operations"
and was highly indignant when Winnie gave her a pair of blunt
scissors and told her they would have to do; usually tender-hearted,
she drew the wrath of Sarah by declaring that she would like to cut
off a rabbit's leg, "just like a doctor."

"I think you're a cruel, cold-blooded girl!" stormed Sarah. "Cut off
a rabbit's foot indeed! Why don't you cut off your own foot and see
how it feels?"

"Oh, Shirley just says that," Rosemary tried to soothe her outraged
sister. "She wouldn't hurt a rabbit any more than you would, Sarah.
You know that. But you've gone without dessert twice for meddling
with Hugh's things, Shirley, and you did promise to remember after
the last time, you know."

Shirley, deprived of pudding and charlotte, was grieved and
penitent, but her memory was resilient and the day after
Thanksgiving temptation assailed her again. Winnie had gone to carry
a pie to an old neighbor several blocks away, Sarah was out playing
with a school chum and Rosemary and Aunt Trudy were deep in the
discussion of new curtains for the former's room. Shirley was left
to amuse herself and her small feet carried her to the empty office.

"Jennie needs an operation," whispered Shirley, her dancing eyes
roving toward the desk.

As luck would have it, a curved scalpel lay there in plain view.
Ordinarily it would have been locked up safely, but Doctor Hugh,
hurriedly selecting his choice of instruments that morning, had not
bothered to replace it in the rack. Shirley went over to the desk,
picked up the shining silver thing and carefully put it down.

"I'll go get Jennie," she said to herself. "She