hardest kind
could ease the hurt.

Fanny walked through the streets as though she had just recovered from
a long illness. Everybody who saw her hurried out to greet her and
talk but she only smiled in a pitiful sort of way and hastened on. It
was nearly noon and she wanted to avoid the midday bustle and the
crowds of children. She had set out the children's dinner but she
hoped to get back before they reached home.

She came out of the bank and stood on the bank steps. She looked down
the streets. Nobody was about and so against her will her eyes turned
to the spot where she had been so pitilessly pilloried a month before.

As then, Seth's team was standing in front of the hotel. Little Billy
Evans was climbing into the big wagon. She watched the child in a kind
of stupor. She knew he ought not to do that. Seth's horses were not
safe for a grown-up, much less a child. She wondered where Seth was or
Billy Evans or Hank. She wondered if she'd better have them telephone
to Billy from the bank and have him get little Billy. She half turned
to do that and then out of the hotel door Jim Tumley came reeling and
singing. Only his voice was a maudlin screech. Little Billy had by
this time gotten into the wagon, pulled the whip from its socket, and
just as Jim came staggering up, touched the more nervous of the two
horses with it. And then it happened--what Green Valley had been
dreading for months.

When men heard the commotion and turned to look they saw Seth's horses
tearing madly round the hotel corner. Little Billy Evans was rattling
around in the wagon box like a cork on the water and Fanny Foster,
swaying like a reed, was hanging desperately to the horses' heads.

Hank Lolly was pitching hay into the barn loft. He saw, jumped and
then lay still with a broken leg. Seth saw and Billy Evans and scores
of other men, and they all ran madly to help. But the terrified
animals waited for no man. And then from the throats of the running
crowd a groan broke, for the school doors opened and into the spring
sunshine and the arms of certain death the little first and second
graders came dancing.

The school building hid the danger from the children and they did not
comprehend the hoarse shouts of warning. But Fanny heard, heard the
childish laughter and the screams of horror. She knew those horses
must not turn that corner. Her feet swung against the shafts. Her
heel caught for a minute and she jerked wi