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 Barner back door that he turned his guilty steps.  Miss Barner was talking to a patient in the office when she heard a small voice at the kitchen door full of distress, whimpering: 

“Please Miss Barner, I’m in a bad way.  Tommy Watson said he’d help me and he never!”

Miss Barner went quickly, and there on the doorstep stood a tiny cupid in tears, tightly clasping his scanty wardrobe to his bosom.

“He said he’d help me and he never!” he repeated in a burst of rage as she drew him in hastily.

“Never mind, honey,” she said, struggling to control her laughter.  “Just wait till I catch Tommy Watson!”

Miss Barner was the assistant Band of Hope teacher.  On Monday afternoon it was part of her duty to go around and help the busy mothers to get the children ready for the meeting.  She also took her turn with Mrs. White in making taffy, for they had learned that when temperance sentiment waned, taffy, with nuts in it, had a wonderful power to bind and hold the wavering childish heart.

There was no human way of telling a taffy day—­the only sure way was to go every time.  The two little White girls always knew, but do you think they would tell?  Not they.  There was secrecy written all over their blond faces, and in every strand of their straw-coloured hair.  Once they deliberately stood by and heard Minnie McSorley and Mary Watson plan to go down to the creamery for pussy-willows on Monday afternoon—­there were four plates of taffy on their mother’s pantry shelf at the time and yet they gave no sign—­Minnie McSorley and Mary Watson went blindly on and reaped a harvest of regrets.

There was no use offering the White girls anything for the information.  Glass alleys, paint cards or even popcorn rings were powerless to corrupt them.  Once Jimmy Watson became the hero of an hour by circulating the report that he had smelled it cooking when he took the milk to Miss Barner’s; but alas, for circumstantial evidence.