The Adventures of Elizabeth Ann | Page 6

locket, opened it and handed it to Mr.
Robert.
"Don't you think Mother is pretty?" she asked, leaning against his
shoulder as he looked at the two tiny smiling photographs in the little
gold case.
"She is very beautiful, and I am sure you and Daddy are proud of her,"
said Mr. Robert, closing the locket and fastening the chain about her
neck again. "And they are proud, I know, of the little daughter who is
taking such a long journey so bravely and trying not to be homesick."
"I don't think I'm brave--I just try not to cry," declared Elizabeth Ann.
"Would you like to see a picture of my mother?" asked Mr. Robert. He
opened the back of his watch and she saw the picture of an old lady
with cloudy white hair and eyes that looked like Mr. Robert's.
"Have you a little girl, too?" questioned Elizabeth Ann softly.
"I haven't anyone," sighed Mr. Robert. "My mother died many years
ago, and I never had a little girl until I borrowed you these last few
days. But you haven't decided what you would like."
Elizabeth Ann thought and thought. "Could I have a little elephant like
yours?" she asked shyly.
Mr. Robert wore on his watch-chain a little white elephant that she had
often admired. It was a very tiny elephant with green eyes that winked
in the sunlight. It was fastened to the watch-chain by a little gold ring.
"Of course if it is too 'spensive," she said, "or you wouldn't like me to
have one like yours, it's all right; Caroline says she gets mad when

folks copy her things."
"Well, I don't," Mr. Robert replied decidedly. "I'll tell you what, you
shall have this elephant, not one like it. I've called it my lucky elephant,
and whenever you look at it you remember, that the old man who gave
it to you said, the only way to make wishes come true is by doing all
we can to help."
Elizabeth Ann didn't understand this clearly, but she didn't think Mr.
Robert was old at all, and she told him so.
"That's because you're my friend," he said, laughing. "Can you write
letters, Elizabeth Ann?"
"I can print some," she admitted, "but it takes me a long time. Mother
said she would write me letters without waiting, 'cause it takes me so
long to do one."
Mr. Robert had been writing something on a slip of paper he had torn
from a little book he carried in his pocket.
"This address is where I can be reached in New York," be said, folding
the slip in half. "If you want me, or need a friend some time, print me a
little note, or ask someone to tell you where this is. Will you do that?"
"How lovely!" cried Elizabeth Ann in delight. "That sounds just like a
fairy story. Do you live in New York, Mr. Robert? And do you know
Aunt Isabel?"
"I haven't any home," he answered, sadly, "and no, I don't know Aunt
Isabel. I haven't many friends, I'm afraid."
"They think you're cross," confided Elizabeth Ann. "Caroline did, but I
told her you weren't at all."
The little man smiled but said nothing. Just then he did not look at all
cross. Elizabeth Ann danced off to put the little slip of paper in her
purse that was in Caroline's care and to show her pretty white elephant

to the faithful maid and to Mr. Hobart and Fred and the grinning young
brakeman. She knew most of the train crew by this time.
"He gave you that?" asked the young brakeman when he saw the
elephant. "The old man gave you his elephant?"
"He isn't old!" cried Elizabeth Ann indignantly. "I don't like you when
you talk that way!"
"Then I won't," promised the brakeman. "There's Fred coming to see
why you don't come to lunch."
The next afternoon Mr. Robert said good-bye to Elizabeth Ann, who
stood up on one of the car seats to kiss him. She had grown very fond
of the little, white-haired gentleman and he seemed to love her dearly,
too. Dinner that night was rather a lonely affair with no Mr. Robert to
talk to, but Caroline explained that they would be in New York in the
morning, and that Elizabeth Ann must go to bed early to be ready to see
her Aunt Isabel.
"Is it New York?" whispered Elizabeth Ann eagerly when she woke up
the next morning.
"Sure, this is New York," said Caroline, who was booking a stout lady
into a tight dress. "You-all lie still a minute, honey, till I get around to
dressing you."
But Elizabeth Ann was too excited to lie still, and she put on her shoes
and stockings--which