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Little Friend Lydia

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I—Christmas Eve
CHAPTER II—The Real Christmas Present
CHAPTER III—The New Home
CHAPTER IV—A Picture and a Party
CHAPTER V—The Story of Little Gwen
CHAPTER VI—Daffodils and Daisies
CHAPTER VII—Dr. Wolfe
CHAPTER VIII—Maggie Medicine
CHAPTER IX—Cobbler, Cobbler, Mend My Shoe
CHAPTER X—Robin Hill
CHAPTER XI—Who Stole the Brown Betty?
CHAPTER XII—Roger Comes Home

Illustrations

“We’ll ask her for a drink,” responded Sammy, never at a loss
“This is your bedroom, Lydia”
“It’s spring, Lucy Locket,” chattered Lydia. “That’s why you
have a new hat and a new dress”
Such a cobbler’s shop had never been seen before

Little Friend Lydia

CHAPTER I—Christmas Eve

It was Christmas Eve, and twenty little boys and girls were watching for
Santa Claus. Ten little boys in blue-striped blouses and dark-blue
neckties, ten little girls in blue-checked aprons and dark-blue
hair-ribbons fixed their eyes on the big folding doors and thought the
time for them to open would never come.

All day long excitement had reigned supreme in the Children’s Home, a
roomy comfortable house set on the very edge of the big city, and where
were gathered the motherless and fatherless children who found love and
care under its hospitable roof. Each ring of the doorbell brought
chattering groups to hang over the banisters, each sound of wheels on
the driveway was the signal for excited faces to be pressed against the
window-pane and for round eyes to try in vain to bore through the paper
wrappings of mysterious bundles whisked out of sight all too soon. Peeks
through the parlor keyhole were forbidden, but passing the door on the
way to luncheon several children were seen to stop and sniff the air as
though they might actually smell out the secret.

“Nurse Norrie called it an ‘entertainment,’” said big Mary Ellen to a
group gathered round her in the playroom. “I do wonder what ’t will be.
It will be to-night anyway; she said so.”

“It’s cowboys and Indians, that’s what it is,” declared Sammy, an agile
youth who all morning had somehow managed to look out of the window and
over the banisters at the same time when occasion demanded. “It’s going
to be a Wild West show to-night, I think.” And Sammy galloped up and
down the playroom in imitation of the dashing broncos he hoped to see
that night.

“Do you think Miss Martin would have horses in the parlor?” asked Mary
Ellen scornfully. “I hope it will be tableaux.” And Mary Ellen
immediately pictured herself the most beautiful tableau of them all,
attired as a Red Cross nurse draped in the American flag, with a noble
expression on her face, and perhaps supporting a wounded soldier or two.

Little Tom took his finger out of his mouth long enough to say, “I hope
it’s candy”; and at this pleasing thought Luley and Lena, the fat little
twins, clapped their hands in agreement. Polly, always a little
behindhand, hadn’t made up her mind yet what the surprise was to be. So
Mary Ellen turned to Lydia, a quiet little girl whose brown eyes looked
out shyly upon the world from under a thatch of yellow curls. Now Lydia
remembered clearly her Christmas a year ago, so although she felt a
little shy about speaking out before them all, she was sure she had
guessed the secret.

“I think it’s Santa Claus,” said Lydia timidly, “and maybe a Christmas
Tree too.”

Miss Martin, who took good care of these little children and loved them
every one, stood in the doorway listening and laughing.

“I’ll give you just one hint,” said she, “if you promise not to ask me
another question. Lydia is the warmest. Sammy is freezing cold, so is
Mary Ellen. Tom is warm, too, but Lydia is hot, red-hot I should say.”
And then Miss Martin closed the door and fled. In the hall she met fat
Nurse Norrie carrying a pile of clean blouses.

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Little Friend Lydia