Big Brother | Page 4

she took another paper and
began teaching them to fold it in curious ways to make boxes, and
boats, and baskets.
One by one they crowded up closer to her, watching her as if she were
some wonderful magician. They leaned their dusty heads against her
fresh gray travelling-dress. They touched her dainty gloves with dirty,
admiring fingers. They did not know that this was the first time that she

had ever come in close contact with such lives as theirs.
They did not know that it was the remembrance of another child,--one
who awaited her home-coming,--a petted little princess born to purple
and fine linen, that made her so tender towards them. Remembering
what hers had, and all these lacked, she felt that she must crowd all the
brightness possible into the short afternoon they were together.
Every one of them, at some time in their poor bare lives, had known
what it was to be kindly spoken to by elegant ladies, to be patronizingly
smiled upon, to be graciously presented with gifts.
But this was different. This one took the little Hodge girl right up in her
lap while she was telling them stories. This one did not pick out the
pretty ones to talk to, as strangers generally did. It really seemed that
the most neglected and unattractive of them received the most of her
attention.
From time to time she glanced across at Robin's lovely face, and
contrasted it with the others. The older boy attracted her still more. He
seemed to be the only thoughtful one among them all. The others
remembered no past, looked forward to no future. When they were
hungry there was something to eat. When they were tired they could
sleep, and all the rest of the time there was somebody to play with.
What more could one want?
The child never stirred from his place, but she noticed that he made a
constant effort to entertain Robin. He told him stories and invented
little games. When the bundle came flying in through the window he
opened it with eager curiosity.
Grace had hurried into the village store as soon as the train stopped and
had bought the first toy she happened to see. It was a black dancing
bear, worked by a tiny crank hidden under the bar on which it stood.
Robin's pleasure was unbounded, and his shrieks of delight brought all
the children flocking around him.
"More dancin', Big Brother," he would insist, when the animal paused.

"Robin wants to see more dancin'."
So patient little "Big Brother" kept on turning the crank, long after
every one save Robin was tired of the black bear's antics.
Once she saw the restless 'Enry trying to entice him into a game of tag
in the aisle. Big Brother shook his head, and the fat little legs
clambered up on the seat again. Robin watched Mrs. Estel with such
longing eyes as she entertained the others that she beckoned to him
several times to join them, but he only bobbed his curls gravely and
leaned farther back in his seat.
Presently the man strolled down the aisle again to close a window, out
of which one fidgety boy kept leaning to spit at the flying telegraph
poles. On his way back Mrs. Estel stopped him.
"Will you please tell me about those two children?" she asked, glancing
towards Robin and his brother. "I am very much interested in them, and
would gladly do something for them, if I could."
"Certainly, madam," he replied deferentially. He felt a personal sense
of gratitude towards her for having kept three of his most unruly
charges quiet so long. He felt, too, that she did not ask merely from idle
curiosity, as so many strangers had done.
"Yes, everybody asks about them, for they are uncommon
bright-looking, but it's very little anybody knows to tell."
Then he gave her their history in a few short sentences. Their father had
been killed in a railroad accident early in the spring. Their mother had
not survived the terrible shock more than a week. No trace could be
found of any relatives, and there was no property left to support them.
Several good homes had been offered to the children singly in different
towns, but no one was willing to take both. They clung together in such
an agony of grief, when an attempt was made at separation, that no one
had the heart to part them.
Then some one connected with the management of the Aid Society

opened a correspondence with an old farmer of his acquaintance out
West. It ended in his offering to take them both for a while. His married
daughter, who had no children of her own, was so charmed with
Robin's picture that she wanted