Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/29

 was one of my great-grandfather's treasures; there are many things of his here, all of them a hundred years old. But here are some that are newer and this, the newest of all, is a silver medal my brother sent me from France, from the Jeanne d'Arc church in Domremy. He went overseas at the beginning of the war and, even now that it is over, still finds work to keep him, so that we do not know when he will come home. This silver figure that you asked about belongs to him, it is an image of Saint Christopher. An Irishman, Michael Martin, whom my brother Ted first knew when he visited some cousins in Montana and whom he afterward persuaded my father to bring here to work for us, gave him the little statue. Michael said that Ted was bound to be a wanderer and that Saint Christopher is especially good to travelers, that he keeps them from dangers by fire, storm, earthquake and such perilous things. But Ted, to Michael's great grief, never pays much attention to charms, and left Saint Christopher behind when he went to France, so I put it here for safe keeping in the toy cupboard."

Elizabeth was turning the little, shining figure over and over in her hand.

"It must have been Michael's most precious treasure," Miss Miranda went on. "He loved my brother so dearly that he wanted to give him the best he had. He is very old now and lives in a little