me to the high mountain, Bessie Bell still lay wide
awake.
Her blue eyes were wide open and both of her pink little hands were
above her head on the pillow. She was thinking, and thinking, and she
forgot that she was thinking her thinking aloud, and she said:
"Alice has a mama. Robbie has a mama. Katie has a mama. Where is
Bessie Bell's mama? Never mind: Bessie Bell will find a mama."
Then Sister Helen Vincula, who was wide awake, too, said:
"Ah me, ah me."
Bessie Bell said: "Sister Helen Vincula, did you call me?"
Sister Helen Vincula said:
"No, child: go to sleep."
* * *
* *
*
The next day was the day for Sister Helen Vincula and Bessie Bell to
leave the high, cool mountain. They were to leave the little cabin
where the lady had told them to live until they had gotten well again.
So when their leaving day came Sister Helen Vincula put a clean
stiff-starched blue-checked apron on Bessie Bell, and they walked
together to the Mall where the band was playing.
Bessie Bell was always so glad when Sister Helen Vincula took her to
the Mall in the afternoon when the band played.
All the little children went every afternoon in their prettiest dresses
to the Mall where the band played.
Because in the afternoon the band played just the sort of music that
little girls liked to hear.
Every afternoon all the nurses came to the Mall and brought all the
babies, and the nurses rolled the babies up and down the sawdust walks
in the pretty baby-carriages, with nice white, and pink, and blue
parasols over the babies' heads.
That afternoon Sister Helen Vincula stayed a long time with Bessie
Bell, on the Mall, sitting by her on the stone bench and listening to
the gay music, and looking at the children in their prettiest clothes,
and at the nurses rolling the babies in the pretty carriages with the
beautiful pink, and white, and blue parasols over the babies' heads.
Then Sister Helen Vincula said: "Bessie Bell, I am going across the
long bridge to see some ladies and to tell them Good-bye, because we
are going away tomorrow."
And Sister Helen Vincula said: "Now, will you stay right here on this
stone bench till I come back for you?"
Bessie Bell said, "Yes, Sister Helen Vincula."
So Sister Helen Vincula went away across the long bridge to see the
ladies and to tell them Good-bye.
Bessie Bell did not know much about going away, and she did not
understand about it at all, so she did
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