nd the gesture brought me in contact with his curiously knobby,
little chest. What were my feelings when I extracted from his sailor
blouse one orange, one blue, and two green balls! And this after ten
minutes of repentant tears! I pointed the moral as quickly as possible
so that I might be alone, and then realizing the apparent hopelessness
of some of the tasks that confronted me I gave way to a moment of
hysterical laughter, followed by such a flood of tears as I had not shed
since I was a child. It was then and there the Corporal found me, on her
way home from school. She flung her books on the floor and took my head
on her kind, scrawny, young shoulder.

"What have they been doin' to you?" she stormed. "You just tell me which
one of 'em 'tis and I'll see't he remembers this day as long as he
lives. Your hair's all mussed up and you look sick abed!"

She led me to the sofa where we put tired babies to sleep, and covered
me with my coat. Then she stole out and came back with a pitcher of hot,
_well-boiled_ tea, after which she tidied the room and made everything
right for next day. Dear Old Corporal!

The improvement in these "little teachers" in capacity as well as in
manner, voice, speech and behavior, was almost supernatural, and it was
only less obvious in the rank and file. There was little "scrubbing"
done on the premises now, for nearly all the mothers who were not
invalids, intemperate, or incurable slatterns, were heartily in sympathy
with our ideals. At the end of six weeks when various members of the
Board of Trustees began to drop in for their second visit they were
almost frightened by our attractive appearance.

"The subscribers will think the children come from Nob Hill," one of
them exclaimed in humorous alarm. "Are you _sure_ you took the most
needy in every way?"

"Quite sure. Sit down in my chair, please, and look at my private book.
Do you see in the first place that thirteen are the children of small
liquor sellers and live back of the saloons? Then note that ten are the
children of widows who support large families by washing, cleaning,
machine sewing or shop-keeping. You will see that one mother and three
fathers on our list are temporarily in jail serving short terms. We may
never have quite such a picturesque class again, and perhaps it would
not be advisable; I wish sometimes that I had taken humanity as it ran,
good, bad and indifferent, instead of choosing children from the most
discou