THE BAND OF HOPE

Mary Barner had learned the lesson early that the only
easing of her own pain was in helping others to bear
theirs, and so it came about that there was perhaps no
one in Millford more beloved than she. Perhaps it was
the memory of her own lost childhood that caused her
heart to go out in love and sympathy to every little boy
and girl in the village.

Their joys were hers; their sorrows also. She took slivers
from little fingers with great skill, beguiling the owners
thereof with wonderful songs and stories. She piloted
weary little plodders through pages of "homework." She
mended torn "pinnies" so that even vigilant mothers never
knew that their little girls had jumped the fence at all.
She made dresses for concerts at short notice. She appeased
angry parents, and many a time prevented the fall of
correction's rod.

When Tommy Watson beguiled Ignatius McSorley, Jr., to
leave his mother's door, and go swimming in the river,
promising faithfully to "button up his back"--Ignatius
being a wise child who knew his limitations--and when
Tommy Watson forgot that promise and basely deserted
Ignatius to catch on the back of a buggy that came along
the river road, leaving his unhappy friend clad in one
small shirt, vainly imploring him to return, Ignatius
could not go home, for his mother would know that he had
again yielded to the siren's voice; so it was to the