el says, 'I'm goin' to throw 'em
all over the fence to you.'

"The little girl jus' kep' still. An' when we took her by each hand, an'
run back toward the fence with her, her feet hardly touchin' the ground,
she kep' up without a word, like all to once she'd found out this is a
world where the upside-down is consider'ble in use. An' I waited with
her, over there this side the cut, hearin' 'em farther down rippin' off
fence rails so's to let through what they hed to carry.

"Time after time Abel come scramblin' up the sand-bank, bringin' 'em two
't once--little girls they was, all about the age o' the first one, none
of 'em with hats or cloaks on; an' I took 'em in my arms an' set 'em
down, an' took 'em in my arms an' set 'em down, till I was fair movin'
in a dream. They belonged, I see by their dress, to some kind of a home
for the homeless, an' I judged the man was takin' 'em somewheres, him
that Abel said'd been killed. Some'd reach out their arms to me over the
fence--an' some was afraid an' hung back, but some'd just cling to me
an' not want to be set down. I can remember them the best.

"Abel, when he come with the last ones, he off with his coat like I with
my ulster, an' as well as we could we wrapped four or five of 'em
up--one that was sickly, an' one little delicate blonde, an' a little
lame girl, an' the one--the others called her Mitsy--that'd come over
the fence first. An' by then half of 'em was beginnin' to cry some. An'
the wind was like so many knives.

"'Where shall we take 'em to, Abel?' I says, beside myself.

"'Take 'em?' he says. 'Take 'em into the church! Quick as you can. This
wind is like death. Stay with 'em till I come.'

"Somehow or other I got 'em acrost that pasture. When I look at the Pump
pasture now, in afternoon like this, or in Spring with vi'lets, or when
a circus show's there, it don't seem to me it could 'a' been the same
place. I kep' 'em together the best I could--some of 'em beggin' for
'Mr. Middie--Mr. Middie,' the man, I judged, that was dead. An' finally
we got up here in the road, an' it was like the end o' pain to be able
to fling open the church door an' marshal 'em through the entry into
that great, big, warm room, with the two fires roarin'.

"I got 'em 'round the nearest stove an' rubbed their little hands an'
tried not to scare 'em to death with wantin' to love 'em; an' all the
while, bad as I felt for 'em, I was glad an' glad that it was me that
could be there w