Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/94

70 of the medicinal herbs whose healing  properties she had carefully studied in the  old book belonging to her father. First she gathered a sweet-smelling bouquet of late  roses and jasmine to cheer the eyes of old  Jan, and then stooping among the herbs  selected those most calculated to help his  poor infirm body. When this was done she re-entered the house, added some malt-cakes  and a bottle of Vrouw Voorhaas’s cooling  homemade wine, and proceeded on her errand  of comfort.

Jan Van Buskirk’s home was on a tiny street just off the Marendorfstrasse, and to  reach it Jacqueline was obliged to take a  rather circuitous route that led through the  poorest section of the city. What she saw there on that day tore her gentle heart with  an agony of sympathy. The weather was extremely hot and oppressive, and every one  seemed to have sought the coolness of the  shaded street in preference to the little suffocating rooms. Pale, emaciated children