Part 15 (1/2)

”Same,” confessed Elnora, ”but there were three of them this time.”

”Wait, until I run back and tell mother about the dog, and get my books.”

Elnora waited. That morning she walked down the hall and into the auditorium beside one of the very nicest girls in Onabasha, and it was the fourth day. But the surprise came at noon when Ellen insisted upon Elnora lunching at the Brownlee home, and convulsed her parents and family, and overwhelmed Elnora with a greatly magnified, but moderately accurate history of her lunch box.

”Gee! but it's a box, daddy!” cried the laughing girl. ”It's carved leather and fastens with a strap that has her name on it. Inside are trays for things all complete, and it bears evidence of having enclosed delicious food, but Elnora never gets any. She's carried it two days now, and both times it has been empty before she reached school. Isn't that killing?”

”It is, Ellen, in more ways than one. No girl is going to eat breakfast at six o'clock, walk three miles, and do good work without her lunch.

You can't tell me anything about that box. I sold it last Monday night to Wesley Sinton, one of my good country customers. He told me it was a present for a girl who was worthy of it, and I see he was right.”

”He's so good to me,” said Elnora. ”Sometimes I look at him and wonder if a neighbour can be so kind to one, what a real father would be like.

I envy a girl with a father unspeakably.”

”You have cause,” said Ellen Brownlee. ”A father is the very dearest person in the whole round world, except a mother, who is just a dear.”

The girl, starting to pay tribute to her father, saw that she must include her mother, and said the thing before she remembered what Mrs.

Sinton had told the girls in the store. She stopped in dismay. Elnora's face paled a trifle, but she smiled bravely.

”Then I'm fortunate in having a mother,” she said.

Mr. Brownlee lingered at the table after the girls had excused themselves and returned to school.

”There's a girl Ellen can't see too much of, in my opinion,” he said.

”She is every inch a lady, and not a foolish notion or action about her.

I can't understand just what combination of circ.u.mstances produced her in this day.”

”It has been an unusual case of repression, for one thing. She waits on her elders and thinks before she speaks,” said Mrs. Brownlee.

”She's mighty pretty. She looks so sound and wholesome, and she's neatly dressed.”

”Ellen says she was a fright the first two days. Long brown calico dress almost touching the floor, and big, lumbering shoes. Those Sinton people bought her clothes. Ellen was in the store, and the woman stopped her crowd and asked them about their dresses. She said the girl was not poor, but her mother was selfish and didn't care for her. But Elnora showed a bank book the next day, and declared that she paid for the things herself, so the Sinton people must just have selected them.

There's something peculiar about it, but nothing wrong I am sure. I'll encourage Ellen to ask her again.”

”I should say so, especially if she is going to keep on giving away her lunch.”

”She lunched with the Bird Woman one day this week.”

”She did!”

”Yes, she lives out by the Limberlost. You know the Bird Woman works there a great deal, and probably knows her that way. I think the girl gathers specimens for her. Ellen says she knows more than the teachers about any nature question that comes up, and she is going to lead all of them in mathematics, and make them work in any branch.”

When Elnora entered the coat room after having had luncheon with Ellen Brownlee there was such a difference in the atmosphere that she could feel it.

”I am almost sorry I have these clothes,” she said to Ellen.

”In the name of sense, why?” cried the astonished girl.

”Every one is so nice to me in them, it sets me to wondering if in time I could have made them be equally friendly in the others.”

Ellen looked at her introspectively. ”I believe you could,” she announced at last. ”But it would have taken time and heartache, and your mind would have been less free to work on your studies. No one is happy without friends, and I just simply can't study when I am unhappy.”