I’ll go down early in the morning and get another pin for Pink.  I wish Father was here so I could tell him about Mr. Snider and how glad he was to get the money.  “Tainted money” were the words the magazine used—­wouldn’t feeding hungry little children take the taint off the money and the people who gave it?  I believe so.  I wish I had all Father’s money to give away and he had to work for all we get, at something like being a lawyer or a doctor.  This had been a lovely day, and I’m thankful for my happiness.  Good-night!

* * * * *

Oh, why aren’t people more careful about what they say before children, who can’t always understand all that things mean!  I will never forgive myself for bringing this awful thing down on Roxanne and her family as long as I live, though Mr. Douglass Byrd says it was not my fault at all.  He was the one that called the present for Belle an explosion, and so put the idea into Lovelace Peyton’s mind.  Nobody knows yet just exactly what did happen or how bad his eyes are hurt, but the light of all the world is going out for me if Lovelace Peyton is going blind so he never can be the famous doctor he was born to be.

Old Uncle Pompey has been gasping with asthma in the kitchen since morning, and all he can tell is that Lovelace Peyton had taken some kerosene out of the can on the back porch, be thought to just mix with onions and other things he often uses to make medicines.  Suddenly he heard an explosion in the back yard and ran out to find Lovelace Peyton’s face all burned and him insensible.  When Roxanne got to him he just moaned that he was making an explosion for me, and then the doctor gave him something to keep him from suffering with the burn while he dressed it.  They can’t tell about the eyes as yet.

[Illustration:  He just moaned that he was making an explosion]

Miss Prissy is with Roxanne, and they won’t let me stay all night, so I had to come home.  Roxanne just won’t believe that he won’t get all right, neither will Mr. Douglass Byrd.  He was lovelier than ever to me, but with that same kind of flavor in his kindness that he and Tony both had yesterday.  What can they be pitying me about?

Father has been away a week and I am so sorry.  I have just written to him about the accident, and I know he will be distressed, for he was as fond of Lovelace as of anybody he knew.  I believe he’ll come right home.

How can I go to sleep and wait until morning to know if those lovely, blue, little-boy eyes will never look up at me again?  What can I do to ease this awful anxiety?  As if I didn’t know what to do when I have heard so often about a Person who watches every sparrow’s flight.

CHAPTER VIII

These few days have been the most wonderful I have ever spent in all my life, the saddest and the most deeply happy.  When a person’s friends are in trouble, it is one time you can let your heart go its own pace no matter where it carries you, and for once I have had my way about pouring out my affection on the Byrds.