"This isn't a joke--'t ain't like a quiltin' party!"

"Just you watch us, and see if we can't help," said Eleanor, st.u.r.dily.

"We're not as useless as we look, I can tell you that! And the first thing we're going to do is to cook a fine dinner, and you are all going to sit right down on the ground and help us eat it. You'll be glad of a meal you don't have to cook yourselves, I'm sure. Where is your well, or your spring for drinking water? Show us that, and we'll do the rest!"

Only half convinced of Eleanor's really friendly intentions, the woman sullenly pointed out the well, and in a few moments Eleanor had set the girls to work.

"The poor things!" she said to Margery, sympathetically. "What they need most of all is courage to pick up again, now that everything seems to have come to an end for them, and make a new start. And I can't imagine anything harder than that!"

"Why, it's dreadful!" said Margery. "She seems to have lost all ambition--to be ready to let things go."

"That's just the worst of it," said Eleanor. "And it's in making them see that there's still hope and cheer and good friendship in the world that we can help them most. I do think we can be of some practical use to them, too, but the main thing is to brace them up, and make them want to be busy helping themselves. It would be so easy for me to give them the money to start over again or I could get my friends to come in with me, and make up the money, if I couldn't do it all myself."

"But they ought to do it for themselves, you mean?"

"Yes. They'll really be ever so much better off in the long run if it's managed that way. Often and often, in the city, I've heard the people who work in the charity organizations tell about families that were quite ruined because they were helped too much."

"I can see how that would be," said Margery. "They would get into the habit of thinking they couldn't do anything for themselves--that they could turn to someone else whenever they got into trouble."

"Yes. You see these poor people are in the most awful sort of trouble now. They're discouraged and hopeless. Well, the thing to do is to make them understand that they can rise superior to their troubles, that they can build a new home on the ashes of their old one."

"Oh, I think it will be splendid if we can help them to do that!"

"They'll feel better, physically, as soon as they have had a good dinner, Margery. Often and often people don't think enough about that.

It's when people feel worst that they ought to be fed best. It's impossible to be cheerful on an empty stomach. When people are well nourished their troubles never seem so great. They look on the bright side and they tell themselves that maybe things aren't as bad as they look."

"How can we help them otherwise, though?"

"Oh, we'll fix up a place where they can sleep to-night, for one thing.

And we'll help them to start clearing away all the rubbish. They've got to have a new house, of course, and they can't even start work on that until all this wreckage is cleared away."

"I wonder if they didn't save some of their animals--their cows and horses," said Bessie. "It seems to me they might have been able to do that."

"I hope so, Bessie. But we'll find out when we have dinner. I didn't want to bother them with a lot of questions at first. Look, they seem to be a little brighter already."

The children of the family were already much brighter. It was natural enough for them to respond more quickly than their elders to the stimulus of the presence of these kind and helpful strangers, and they were running around, talking to the girls who were preparing dinner, and trying to find some way in which they could help.

And their mother began to forget herself and her troubles, and to watch them with brightening eyes. When she saw that the girls seemed to be fond of her children and to be anxious to make them happy, the maternal instinct in her responded, and was grateful.

"Oh, we're going to be able to bring a lot of cheer and new happiness to these poor people," said Eleanor, confidently. "And it will be splendid, won't it, girls? Could anything be better fun than doing good this way?

It's something we'll always be able to remember, and look back at happily. And the strange part of it is that, no matter how much we do for them, we'll be doing more for ourselves."

"Isn't it fine that we've got those blankets?" said Dolly. "If we camp out here to-night they'll be very useful."

"They certainly will. And we shall camp here, though not in tents. Later on this afternoon, we'll have to fix up some sort of shelter. But that will be easy. I'll show you how to do it when the time comes. Now we want to hurry with the dinner--that's the main thing, because I think everyone is hungry."

CHAPTER IV

GETTING A START

Often people who have been visited by great misfortunes become soured and suspect the motives of even those who are trying to help them.

Eleanor understood this trait of human nature very well, thanks to the fact that as a volunteer she had helped out the charity workers in her own city more than once. And as a consequence she did not at all resent the dark looks that were cast at her by the poor woman whose every glance brought home to her more sharply the disaster that the fire had brought.

"We've got to be patient if we want to be really helpful," she explained to Dolly Ransom, who was disposed to resent the woman's unfriendly aspect.

"But I don't see why she has to act as if we were trying to annoy her, Miss Eleanor!"

"She doesn't mean that at all, Dolly. You've never known what it is to face the sort of trouble and anxiety she has had for the last few days.

She'll soon change her mind about us when she sees that we are really trying to help. And there's another thing. Don't you think she's a little softer already?"

"Oh, she is!" said Bessie, with shining eyes. "And I think I know why--"

"So will Dolly--if she will look at her now. See, Dolly, she's looking at her children. And when she sees how nice the girls are to them, she is going to be grateful--far more grateful than for anything we did for her. Because, after all, it's probably her fear for her children, and of what this will mean to them, that is her greatest trouble."

Dinner was soon ready, and when it was prepared, Eleanor called the homeless family together and made them sit down.

"We haven't so very much," she said. "We intended to eat just this way, but we were going on a little way. Still, I think there's plenty of everything, and there's lots of milk for the children."

"Why are you so good to us?" asked the woman, suddenly. It was her first admission that she appreciated what was being done, and Eleanor secretly hailed it as a prelude to real friendliness.

"Why, you don't think anyone could see you in so much trouble and not stop to try to help you, do you?" she said.

"Ain't noticed none of the neighbors comin' here to help," said the woman, sullenly.

"I think they're simply forgetful," said Eleanor. "And you know this fire was pretty bad. They had a great fight to save Cranford from burning up."

"Is that so?" said the woman, showing a little interest in the news. "My land, I didn't think the fire would get that far!"

"They were fighting night and day for most of three days," said Eleanor.

"And now they're pretty tired, and I have an idea they're making up for lost sleep and rest. But I'm sure you'll find some of them driving out this way pretty soon to see how you are getting on."

"Well, they won't see much!" said the woman, with a despairing laugh.

"We came back here, 'cause we thought some of the buildings might be saved. But there ain't a thing left exceptin' that one barn a little way over there. You can't see it from here. It's over the hill. We did save our cattle and a good many chickens and ducks. But all our crops is ruined--and how we are ever goin' to get through the winter I declare I can't tell!"

"Have you a husband? And, by the way, hadn't you better tell me your name?" said Eleanor.

"My husband's dead--been dead nearly two years," said the woman. "I'm Sarah Pratt. This here's my husband's sister, Ann."

"Well, Mrs. Pratt, we'll have to see if we can't think of some way of making up for all this loss," said Eleanor, after she had told the woman her own name, and introduced the girls of the Camp Fire. "Why--just a minute, now! You have cows, haven't you? Plenty of them? Do they give good milk?"

"Best there is," said the woman. "My husband, he was a crank for buyin'

fine cattle. I used to tell him he was wastin' his money, but he would do it. Same way with the chickens."

"Then you sold the milk, I suppose?"

"Yes, ma'am, and we didn't get no more for it from the creamery than the farmers who had just the ornery cows."