nd so many mothers and fathers died that there were more orphans
than the asylum could possibly take care of. They needed a good
friend, now. You would hardly think, would you, that a poor woman who
worked in a laundry could be much of a friend to them? But Margaret
was. She went straight to the kind Sisters who had the asylum and told
them she was going to give them part of her wages and was going to work
for them, besides. Pretty soon she had worked so hard that she had
some money saved from her wages. With this, she bought two cows and a
little delivery cart. Then she carried her milk to her customers in
the little cart every morning; and as she went, she begged the
left-over food from the hotels and rich houses, and brought it back in
the cart to the hungry children in the asylum. In the very hardest
times that was often all the food the children had.

A part of the money Margaret earned went every week to the asylum, and
after a few years that was made very much larger and better. And
Margaret was so careful and so good at business that, in spite of her
giving, she bought more cows and earned more money. With this, she
built a home for orphan babies; she called it her baby house.

After a time, Margaret had a chance to get a bakery, and then she
became a bread-woman instead of a milk-woman. She carried the bread
just as she had carried the milk, in her cart. And still she kept
giving money to the asylum. Then the great war came, our Civil War.
In all the trouble and sickness and fear of that time, Margaret drove
her cart of bread; and somehow she had always enough to give the
starving soldiers, and for her babies, besides what she sold. And
despite all this, she earned enough so that when the war was over she
built a big steam factory for her bread. By this time everybody in the
city knew her. The children all over the city loved her; the business
men were proud of her; the poor people all came to her for advice. She
used to sit at the open door of her office, in a calico gown and a
little shawl, and give a good word to everybody, rich or poor.

Then, by and by, one day, Margaret died. And when it was time to read
her will, the people found that, with all her giving, she had still
saved a great deal of money, and that she had left every cent of it to
the different orphan asylums of the city,--each one of them was given
something. Whether they were for white children or black, for Jews,
Catholics