t
she couldn't see very well; and there were so many potatoes! She looked
every moment she had a chance all the next day, and cried a great deal.
"I can never be real happy again," she thought.

"Don't cry any more," said Miss Amanda, "it does not look well when you
open the door for my customers. You have enough to eat and wear; what
more do you want?"

"Something to love," said Elsie, but not very loud.

She tried not to cry again, and then she felt worse not-to shed tears,
when, perhaps, her dear little potato-child was eaten up.

Two days after, as she was still searching, a little piece of white
paper in the far dark corner attracted her attention. She went over and
lifted it up. Behind it was a hole, and partly in and partly out of the
hole lay her potato-child. I think a rat had dragged it out of the bin.
She hugged it to her heart, and cried for joy.

"Oh, my darling, you have come back to me, you have come back!" And then
it seemed as if the pink eyes of the potato-child looked up into Elsie's
in affectionate gratitude; and it became plain to Elsie that her child
loved her. She was so thankful that she even kissed the little piece
of white paper. "If it hadn't been for you I would never have found my
child. I mean to keep you always," she said, and she wrapped it about
her potato-child, and put them in her bosom. "We must never be parted
again," she murmured.

At supper, with many misgivings, she unwrapped her treasure for Miss
Amanda, and asked if she could keep it as her own. "I won't eat any
potato for dinner tomorrow if you will give me this," she said.

"Well," answered Miss Amanda, "I don't know as it will do any harm; why
do you want it?"

"It is my potato-child. I want to love it."

"See you lose no time, then," said Miss Amanda.

And afterward, Elsie never called the potato it, but always "my child."

She found a fragment of calico, large enough for a dress and skirt, with
enough over, a queer, three-cornered piece, which she pinned about the
unequal shoulders for a shawl. Upon the bonnet she worked for days.

All this sewing was a great joy to her. Last of all, she begged a bit
of frayed muslin from the sweepings for a night-dress. Then she could
undress her baby every night.

She must have heard a tiny tuber-voice, for she said, "Now I can never
forget the sound of loving words, and the world is full of joy."

Elsie had a candle-box in her room, with the cover hung on hinges. It
serv