Tell me a joke," said the little boy. Missie laughed delightedly. "No story! Please. I just want a story. You tell me. Any story you like." "What's the fun of a story, if you can't hear it and try to guess what it's all about?" he replied. "You tell me a story." Missie smiled at her little brother and shook her head. She could never tell one after another. And she was all out of new ones to tell. And when she tried to describe people she didn't know, she lost the thread and ended up all mixed up. She just couldn't make people come alive in her mind. "Well, when I was little, there was a woman in our home, Aunt Jenny. She was so tiny and dark, and she looked to be all bones. And she had eyes as blue as the bluest sky. And she loved to make things with her hands—like her beautiful knitted shawl that she always put on when she was going to do anything special. Oh, I just loved to see her work!" "Oh, me too," said the little boy. "We also had a dog, Aunt Jenny's dog; he was such a fine-looking beast. He looked like a collie. But he had a soft kind of face, and he loved Missie and loved to be petted. "Well, that winter we had a bitter cold spell and I was just getting over an illness that had bothered me for a long while. All the time I was poorly, Missie would go to the bedroom and sit and look out the window. "She saw the smoke coming from the chimney of a poor little shack near the house. One day she asked why we did not help the people whose home it was. Aunt Jenny was always very sad when she spoke of these poor, forsaken folk, and always told us to take our daily bread to them—in fact, we were used to visiting them to give her comfort; and we always carried a basket of food with us. But the man and his wife who lived in this house had a harsh, unforgiving look about them, and Aunt Jenny said it would be of no use for us to visit them, for we might as well ask the rain to stop raining as to ask them to mend their ways and help themselves. "I remember how Missie went on her knees and cried when we told her we could never have anything to do with them. She said she would not take her turn at eating unless she might make a snowball—not to throw, but just to play with. "Well, the next day was cold and very, very still. I was lying in my bed upstairs, having another good bout of the illness. Then I heard something—a sound of some kind. I opened my eyes and saw Missie coming with a great pailful of snow—her breath coming and going like a white cloud of smoke. She laughed and said she had a good time—the snow felt like little bits of ice crunching under her feet—and she wanted to bring me the sunshine, too, so I could lie there in the sun all day and be warm, just like the flowers and the birds and the butterflies, and not cold and stiff all the time. "She did bring the sunshine. She brought me a dish of hot apple cider and a rosy apple—something I had never had before. "I'm afraid that after she had gone I fell asleep and slept all through the afternoon. But next day, Aunt Jenny was there when I opened my eyes, and I asked for the apple. She laughed and said no, that it was for some folks who did not have much money, but Missie had given it to me. "I wonder why she did that!" "Because you were sick, maybe," said the little boy. "I guess so," she replied. "And then when you got well, maybe she thought you might be hungry again sometime, or might want something and not have it. Is that it?" "I don't know," she said. "Maybe that's true, too." The little boy frowned. "It's too bad you don't know," he said, rather doubtfully. "I would like to know." Missie was very glad that she could not read, for she saw by the expression in his eyes that she had missed something important. "It's just a story," she said. "That's all it was, and I must be going now. And I must remember to tell you what I heard about Missie and the snowball when I come home." "Oh, please don't go!" cried the little boy. "Please!" Missie knew his eyes were aching to see her again. She realized he was tired of playing with his blocks and his wooden animals. He was tired of walking from one chair to another. He was tired of his meals—and tired of books he couldn't understand. He missed her terribly. Missie could not leave him, however, in such a lonesome mood. "Very well," she said, "I will tell you the story as we go along." But she added that it would not be any great story, for she would be busy helping Auntie Hannah with the dinner dishes, and she would have to rush away. "Oh, all right," said the little boy. Missie's story as she and the little boy walked along together would have done any child's heart good, with its pictures of the olden times and its picture of the good little girl who was willing to sacrifice much of her pleasure to help others. "You know," said Missie, as they approached the house, "she was just a little bit bigger than you, and she would have liked to be a big girl like you." The little boy looked down at his boots and began to whistle in a small, high-pitched voice. He did not make a sound that seemed to the listener as merry and full of joy as it should have been. Missie was very disappointed, for he had been in such a hurry for her story that she had thought he would have loved it. Missie made a start at the door and nearly ran into the house. She rushed from room to room, telling the little boy the room was too warm and perhaps Aunt Hannah would tell them to go out and play, and she would tell Auntie Hannah a story while Missie and he sat in the sun room with the blind down. And so she rushed from the kitchen to the dining room, and thence to the parlor and then to the stairway leading to the little porch—and finally to the window of the sun room. "Mother, the blind's up." "All right," was her mother's voice, "I'm just finishing up here. Go get your sun bonnet and you and Missie can sit in the sun and tell stories till your cheeks get red. I put a loaf and a pot of jelly on the table there for you. Now then, Missie, come along." Missie didn't move. "Auntie Hannah," she called, "I can't come. I have to go home." "Oh, come on now, Missie," said her mother, firmly. Missie turned in confusion. "I can't," she said, and started out of the room. She had just reached the hall when she heard her mother's voice calling. "What's the matter?" she heard her ask. "What's the matter?" But Missie was hurrying up the stairway, and did not dare to look back. The little boy was standing at the table munching a piece of bread. "You're not eating your dinner," he called to Missie. "How come you didn't come in?" "I—I can't come now," she said. "I just can't." Missie's mother did not speak to her for the rest of the day. The next morning she arose with the earliest dawn and set to work. She baked a batch of cookies—little oblongs that had a hole in the center and were called pop-overs. She also made biscuit dough, and baked it, too, and she put a great bowl of water to boil and set out two old red earthenware pitchers to make the crust soft. She prepared vegetables for dinner and made bread puddings, and filled a big box with jars of jam and the bread which she had put up the day before. And so she busied herself about the kitchen until the time came for her to sit down to the table to wait for Missie. She sighed and shook her head. How could the mother expect to make a little girl happy when she wouldn't even let the little girl come in and see the lovely supper her mother had made! And Missie was just as little a girl as she could possibly be. Missie had told her mother all about her doll, and how it was her very own; she hadn't given it to the little boys. And she had told her all about her new coat, too, and how that had been a gift, too. When the table was set and everything in readiness, Missie's mother sighed again. It seemed there never was a