ever let Cousin Dink nor anybody know. She is
going to have them framed and let us hang them up in our room. I like
being here lots better than traveling 'round with old Cousin Dink,
don't you, Peter!"

"I should say so. I hope nobody won't want to 'dopt us. They say folks
is all time 'doptin' children from here. That's what the nurse told me
when she washed my face and hands. She says, 'If you don't be clean
nobody won't want to 'dopt you,' so I'm gonter be as dirty as ever I
can be."

"Oh, Peter, what would Mother say? It would be real nice to be 'dopted
if we could get 'dopted together."

"Oh, but they couldn't take me without you," and Peter began to weep.
"Let's both of us have dirty faces all the time so nobody won't want
us."

"No, let's both of us have clean faces all the time so somebody will
want both of us. I'm mighty sorry I cut my hair off so jiggly. When it
grows out I'm going to see if I can't save up some money and get a
permanent wave so's I'll look lovely and everybody that comes to the
home will say, 'Who is that charming child? I'll take her and her dear
little brother too and well be a happy family.' Now wouldn't that be
nice, Peter dear?"

"That 'pends on who it is. Supposin' it was a person like Cousin Dink
that comed along an' took us away an' then knocked us around an'
wouldn't let us stay put; I'm thinkin' about stayin' put for a while."

The two little waifs had many conversations similar to the foregoing.
They soon fitted themselves into the life of the home. Peter was a
general favorite because of his engaging manner and sweet confiding
nature, while Polly made herself so useful in helping to care for the
babies with which the home swarmed that the nurses declared they did
not know what they would do without her. She was a motherly child and,
having taken care of Peter so much during her mother's illness and
after the wanderings with Cousin Dink began, she was well able to nurse
the little ones.

"There's something about little babies that makes me happy all over and
makes me want to cry too," she said to one of the nurses, holding to
her bosom a little pink mummy-like bundle, a recent addition to the
home. "I hope some nice kind lady is going to want this little baby
child and she will grow up and never know she's 'dopted. Being 'dopted
isn't so bad if you don't ever know it. Peter don't want ever to be
'dopted because he thinks somebody like Cousin Dink might get him. I
hope they